Device
by skypig21
Summary: Beckett, Ronon and McKay are accidentally absorbed into an Ancient device designed to treat mental illness, and now must fight for their sanity…and their lives.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Device

Author: sparky13

E-mail: T for language

Category: Gen

Feedback: Welcome!

Beta: Huge thanks to Inkling, Kamelion and Karen for their hard work and support!

Spoilers: "The Long Goodbye," little ones for other S2 episodes.

Summary: Beckett, Ronon and McKay are accidentally absorbed into an Ancient device designed to treat mental illness, and now must fight for their sanity…and their lives. Disclaimer: The characters and premise of "SGA" are not mine. Thanks to the creators of the Stargate universe for…everything.

AN: This story takes place immediately following the events of "The Long Goodbye." Spoilers for that episode all over the place.

**Part One: Talking Trauma**

"Once a patient shows signs of profound shock—hypotension, tachycardia and so forth—they almost always die."

"I wasn't aware."

Carson Beckett leaned back and folded his arms tightly across his chest. He turned his weary eyes towards the ocean. The view from Kate Heightmeyer's office captured both the water and part of the city. Those were his choices.

"Aye, well," he went on. "Most people think that if you stick a couple of IVs in him and get him blinking again that the patient will recover. Not so. Maybe not that day, but eventually, the kidneys begin shutting down, cardiac arrhythmias develop. It's very hard to bring back someone only to lose them in time. Hard on me, but especially hard on the patient's family."

"Yes, I see that."

"It's what people are talking about when they say 'Oh, he was getting better but then took a turn for the worse'. It's not a mystery, really. God doesn't suddenly decide that He really, really meant to bring the patient home, you see? It's not like that. The patient dies because shock kills him."

Heightmeyer said nothing, so he continued. "When someone arrests due to trauma—I'll bet you didn't know this, either—using a defibrillator is contraindicated. It's useless."

"Hmm."

Raising his eyebrows, Beckett sighed, the sound echoing off the walls of Kate's sparsely furnished office. "Still, you want to try. I once witnessed an ED physician cut open a trauma code's chest and attempt using internal paddles. Talk about useless! But doctors, good ones anyway, are like that."

"And you?"

He rubbed his hands along the sofa cushions, gathering his thoughts.

"Look, we're all alone in this galaxy. It's just this expedition. Every member who has died has felt like the death of my own kin."

He shook his head.

"I don't know why I'm talking about this now. Maybe it's the bloody awful weather, eh? One crappy day after the other lately. Reminds me of what this place was like when we first arrived, when it was sunk at the bottom of the ocean."

She gave him a thoughtful look, meltingly kind.

"Are you feeling depressed, Carson?"

The doctor looked up at her sharply. "Ach, nae. No' me. A bit down, perhaps. But clinically depressed? I'd say not."

Back in the day, when he still had control over the choices in his life, he purposely swung his career away from the social sciences. Sociology, anthropology, psychology…they were easy, they were safe. It was nearly impossible to make a fatal mistake. No one got their hands dirty with them. Medicine, especially the sort he'd been practicing lately, was nothing but dirty hands and errors in judgment.

A critically injured man lay in his recovery room right now because of that.

Heightmeyer's patients marched through her office in an orderly fashion. Beckett rarely saw anyone by appointment. He had spent nearly the entire session sitting bolt upright, alternately wedging his hands in his armpits or rubbing them on the seat on which he sat. Perhaps psychiatry would have been a better career choice.

"Has anything happened lately that you found particularly disturbing?"

He looked at her as if she were growing a third arm and smiled tightly.

"What do you think, Kate? I have disturbing experiences every day! Don't you?"

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head.

But Beckett ran with the ball she'd tossed to him.

"If it's not nanoviruses, it's creatures that suck the life out of you with their bare hands, or people taking over other people's bodies. I read the SGC reports before I agreed to be a part of the expedition. They were so bloody strange I couldn't believe half of 'em. None of us did. We didn't expect the Wraith, now, did we? We're all half knackered with that most of the time."

"So you think you're suffering from simple exhaustion?"

He folded his hands in his lap, unable to find comfort.

_Weir and Sheppard full of Phoebus and Thalan. Ford, so young and eager, full of Wraith enzyme. McKay full of Cadman. People full of bullets, full of nanovirus, full of retrovirus, full of a cure that kills them. _

_Some of this was his doing. When had he stopped being cautious?_

"Probably," he lied, now uncertain why he had chosen to talk to Heightmeyer. He glanced at his watch. "Look at the time." An impatient goodbye and then he was gone, making his way back to the infirmary.

…..

Ronon Dex lay in the half-world between sleep and unconsciousness, Elizabeth Weir sitting at his bedside. She had been there for a long while, now, waiting for Ronon to wake up. She hadn't said very much to anyone, still not completely over her own horrendous experiences. Beckett knew that Elizabeth would be visiting with Heightmeyer sooner or later, either on her own or by his order. In the meantime she needed assurance that Ronon would recover.

Beckett checked the monitors and recited a litany of good news for his own benefit as much as hers.

"Heart rate's fine, O2 saturation is one hundred percent. No fever. Respirations are 16…" He produced a 'scope from his lab coat pocket and held the bell to his patient's chest. "No rales or ronchi." He activated the automatic blood pressure cuff that encircled Ronon's left arm. "Pressure's up to 112 over 76, practically perfect."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'm glad to hear it," she said, her voice heavy with the stress of caring and the effort of trying not to show it too much. "When is he going to wake up?"

"It was a nasty injury, Elizabeth. A lot of damage at the entry site and cavitation along the bullet's pathway, of course. Sonic pressure injuries, transected small bowel, mild hypovolemic shock…"

"Carson," she held up her hand to ward off further details.

Beckett realized what he had done. "Sorry, dear." He adjusted the peripheral IV drip, rolling the cockstop to allow for a less restricted flow. His patient hadn't eaten in two days. Another few hours and he'd have to begin total parenteral nutrition. A man that big…you didn't mess around with denying him calories.

"His body's been through quite an ordeal. He'll wake up when he's ready. Abdominal injuries can be extremely painful, so I've had him on morphine. Cut it back an hour ago, though. Not completely, of course, but enough to let him come up for air. He should start to rouse by dinnertime."

He looked at her appraisingly. She had picked up on his hint, he knew.

"He knows I'm here, Carson." That was all the explanation she seemed willing to give.

"Aye. Probably."

Returning to his office, Beckett rubbed his temples, then his eyes. He dozed off at his desk, caught in a drifting reverie until Ronon's painful moans woke him. Approaching his patient's bedside, he noticed that Elizabeth was not there anymore.

The Satedan opened his eyes, and then squinted them shut again.

"Hurts," he managed.

And it all began from there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two: Inadequacy**

Dr. Rodney McKay fiddled with a tiny scar on his left hand. Funny, he couldn't recall how it had gotten there. Such a miniscule thing, but significant nevertheless, because he noticed every injury, every drop of blood that left his body.

Kate Heightmeyer was speaking, but, at this moment, McKay wasn't paying attention. He didn't need her to explain things to him; her job was to listen to him explain himself. Today he was having difficulty boosting power to the long-range sensors.

"I get a lot of grief from Zelenka," he interrupted. "And…what's his name? That new guy, Bryson.

"You feel they don't trust your work?"

He snorted derisively. "Of course they do. My stuff's good."

Heightmeyer nodded, waiting. She knew him better than anyone. That made her terribly dangerous and unattractive, his frequent sexual fantasies notwithstanding.

"Sheppard's got the gene, Carson's got it. Those of us who responded positively to the gene therapy get by all right, but not like the natural carriers. They have the city at their feet. No big deal, certainly. Just that it's wasted on them. Sheppard's a killing machine—and I mean that in the nicest possible way--and Beckett's too chickenshit to use this…this gift, if you will."

"And you feel…short-changed?"

McKay raised his head, but not his eyes. Even when he was trying to be direct he couldn't look people in the face.

"The reason I get crap from my colleagues is because they blame me for not having the talent to use the city's systems as well as the natural carriers. But it's not my fault. The city will listen to people like Beckett, who has no business talking to her, rather than to me, someone who can use the information in a productive way."

Kate Heightmeyer made a brief notation on her yellow legal pad. This made him nervous. What if someone saw these notes? It's not as if yellow legal pads were password protected.

"Is it possible to train yourself to be more proficient with Atlantis's systems?"

Now she was trying to solve the problem. He yawned, weary of this conversation. The city needed fixing, not him.

"Well," he said, perfunctorily. "I'm due…someplace else."

Heightmeyer looked up from her pad. McKay felt curious—even a little frightened--about what she had written there. "We still have five minutes."

"I…I know," he stammered, anxious to leave and thoroughly inept at coming up with an excuse for doing so. "There is something important that I need to see in my lab. You know physics: It runs on its own schedule."

The therapist gave him a confused scowl. It was easy to turn his back on that. She was a shrink; probably 90 percent of her patients had triggered that look.

McKay entered his lab. It was late in the day, almost dinnertime for those who worked day shift and ate at regular intervals. McKay had barely eaten in days, for he truly was bent out of shape about Atlantis, about her stubborn refusal to connect with him.

He and others had lately come to refer to the city as "she," which McKay felt was quite fitting indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3: It Begins…**

The infirmary staff had had their hands full when Ronon awoke. Vitals, feeding, watering, assessing how much of Ronon was returning to normal and how much still needed work.

Two additional patients had arrived, one on foot, the other via gurney. Beckett had treated and released the first after putting a couple of stitches in his hand. The other, a woman with a severe headache, was sent over for a CT scan and then given a bed in a private area where the lights could be dimmed. Carson decided to run a CBC and hematocrit on her before crashing for a few hours' rest.

So, 0245 hours. Dead of night. So quiet and still that Beckett could hear Ronon's resonant breathing on the other side of the room. The large man's opiate stupor was keeping him comfortable enough for the moment.

The centrifuge spun round and round, blurring and ticking and making its comforting white noise. When Beckett closed his eyes for a moment, the noise became everything. There were no walls, no shelves containing boxes of kling and trauma dressings, no splints, no morphine ampoules, no Cardizem, no Lidocaine, no laryngoscopes, no non-rebreathers or nasal cannulae. If he closed his eyes for just a moment, he wasn't there anymore and didn't have to face up to what he had done.

"_Oh, c'mon. Don't be so heartless."_

How had a simple, rather sweet and touching situation turned into a gigantic cluster fuck before his eyes? Phoebus. Thalan. Carson wasn't a stupid person, certainly, just one who had forgotten exactly where he was. He had let it happen, encouraged it, actually, because he wanted to believe in the enduring qualities of love and fealty, which were so precious and so rare in this galaxy.

Before Beckett had had a chance to truly regret his lack of foresight, Caldwell lay stunned on the floor and, in a moment, Beckett had joined him. He thought about this, about everything that happened that day.

Rather than depressed or exhausted, the doctor felt responsible. Nothing he said to Heightmeyer would change his mind and nothing she said to him would help.

This is when it began…

…Responsible and the ticking centrifuge and the darkened operating room and Ronon, gut-shot and shocky, and a half-dozen Marines beat up by Elizabeth Weir, of all people. He was so tired, so worn out from trying to right his wrongs, from trying to put all of the toothpaste back into the tube.

For a second Beckett thought he was on his way to the floor in a faint. He reached out to the lab table in front of him to catch himself, only to find himself grasping at air. His feet were no longer planted on the infirmary floor, but instead stretched out into dead space, and his eyes flew open to see only darkness. Half panicked, he wrapped his arms around his head and shut his eyes against the unknown.

_I must be dying._

But that sort of talk ended then his back slammed to the ground, knocking the air from his lungs.

_Count of three. _

His chest hitched spasmodically, not sure whether it wanted to inhale or exhale.

_One…take a deep breath. _

He forced himself to exhale, emitting a tiny, airless squeak in the process. It did the trick, though, rebooted the system so that he could expand his chest again.

His arms and legs twitched, nerves crackling irritably.

_Two…feel for fingers and toes. _

Carson bent his ankles a bit; he pushed a big toe around inside his shoe, touched thumb to pinky.

_Three…open eyes…_

Gone were the trappings of civilization, the clean lines and constant temperature of Atlantis. Someone had kidnapped him, perhaps, using Asgard beaming technology. Abducted and brought him…here?

The forest was denser than any he had ever seen. Trees, mostly pine, stood only a few meters apart, allowing only the smallest amount of sunlight to touch the mossy ground. Pine needles littered the forest floor, along with thin, starving shrubs and pathetically tiny seedlings. A rich, fertile scent permeated the air, free of rot. Beckett stared about him, amazed that he had not landed on a treetop when he had fallen. For he had obviously fallen. Hadn't he? From the sky? From a ship? Never mind, he was bloody well here, so now what?

A nearby groan alerted him to the presence of another. In the darkly shaded forest, a slowly moving bulk on the ground several feet away unwound and finally stood erect, showing itself to be Ronon Dex. He blinked as if the sun had slapped him in the face and let his hands roam over his belly, frowning in puzzlement.

"I'm not hurting any more," he said calmly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four: Traveling Companions**

Ronon Dex stretched out his long limbs, noticing now that he was no longer wearing an infirmary gown, that his IV was gone with no trace of bruise or puncture. He was, in fact, dressed in his usual clothing, the practical and protective leathers he had come to Atlantis wearing. The front of his tunic was decorated with a bullet hole and blood stains, but no wound existed beneath it.

Beckett approached his patient, assessing him quickly. Last the doctor had seen, Ronon had been wavering between narcotic sleep and agony. The Satedan now appeared never to have been shot in the first place.

"You _were_ shot," Carson stated, not bothering to hide his shock and wonder.

"I know." Ronon replied to the question that had not been asked.

"We're not wrong about this, then." He pulled down Ronon's shirt, staring at the bullet hole smack in the middle of it, at the rust-colored bloodstains that bloomed around the tear.

Beckett himself had somehow been divested of his lab coat. He wore his usual uniform and jacket.

Ronon stooped, gathered up a handful of dirt and sniffed it. Apparently unsatisfied with what he learned from that, he brushed the clod from his hand and turned to the doctor.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"You think someone did something stupid again?"

The question hung in the air like a target. Of all people, Ronon Dex had the most cause to ask it.

"Maybe. You've traveled to more planets than I. You've never seen this place before?"

"No." Ronon looked upwards, as if the sky had answers. "I might know the planet, but just not this part of it."

A reasonable remark, a logical one. Beckett was not all that familiar with Ronon Dex, certainly could not count him among his good friends. Still, it was not without a certain irony that Beckett, who could perfectly balance a patient's electrolytes but lacked any skill whatsoever at erecting a rudimentary shelter for himself, was in this odd predicament with the Satedan equivalent of an Eagle Scout.

Complementing each other was a good thing, not that the doctor could do a lick of good out here, with lots of trees around but no shelves stuffed with medical supplies.

"Should we try to find our way out of this forest, then? To a town?"

Ronon looked around again, his dreads flapping about his head. "Sure," he replied.

Not wanting to take the lead by any means, Beckett held up his hand.

"You're the one who knows how to survive outdoors," he said. "Lead on or not. It's up to you."

Ronon regarded him levelly, amusement curling his lips.

"You don't know the outside world?" he asked.

"I've spent my life inside lecture halls and hospitals, son."

Ronon looked up towards the treetops, again. Carson had no idea what the behemoth was thinking; he simply trusted that a man who had spent a very long time deep in the woods would have some inkling of how to get out of them.

"This way," Ronon grumbled, pointing in a direction that seemed as unproductive as any other. Beckett shrugged submissively and followed in silence. No matter the mystery of their coming to the forest, he felt confident that somehow Ronon would lead him into the light.

….

They had stumbled about for hours, hoping to locate an end to the suffocating forest. Ronon's long legs and natural fitness kept him always ahead of the doctor. Whatever force had healed the Runner ought to have extended its effects to aging Scots, for Carson felt quite a bit older since switching galaxies.

Now Ronan sat upon a large pile of leaves and moss that he'd scooped up into a mound. He seemed at home in the dank woods, no matter what predators lurked nearby. Carson felt rather middle-class there, neither secure in the limitless but crowded space nor warm enough settled in his own bedding, gathered following Ronon's example.

They had grown weary, so they had foraged for bedding to rest upon. Neither had noticed hunger or thirst, yet, despite having gone for hours without food or water. Carson wondered if it were possible to die of dehydration without ever feeling thirsty, to starve without being hungry.

The worst place Beckett had ever lived was a bed-sit in Glasgow, which he rented for his first-year medical internship. It was cheap and drafty—a room with a hotplate—that overlooked a beige water tower. It was one flight up from an Indo-Pakistani take-away. At first he thought the cooking smells wafting up from downstairs were tempting and exotic. Within a fortnight, however, the thick aromas of curries and braised meats coming through the floorboards had settled on his clothing and in his skin. He smelled like samosas and biryanis and pappadam, like cumin and asafoetida and garam masala. Decades later he still could not stomach the smell of curry.

Now, watching the vast forest dim as night approached, Beckett realized that he'd give almost anything to be back at that flat right then. Smells and all, he didn't care, as long as he didn't have to sleep out in the cold with a silent person who seemed—no, who more or less stated—that he was unhappy with whom he was stuck.

"Thanks for saving my life."

The words seemed to come from everywhere as they bounced off thousands of rigid tree trunks. Surprised, Beckett looked up at Dex, who was casually picking at a small twig, twisting part of the thin bark until it splintered in his hands.

"When Dr. Weir shot me."

"Oh. That." Carson shuddered. He couldn't determine whether he shook from cold or from remembrance, suddenly seeing Elizabeth's ghastly expression of hate so deep nothing could reach it. "She wasn't herself. You know that, don't you?"

Ronon threw down the destroyed twig. "'Course I do. I'm not going to call her Phoebus. Atlantis seemed safe enough. Hoped I'd never get hurt there, especially with that tracking device out of my back."

He paused, in that typical reserved manner of his. Carson had realized quite a while ago that conversing with Ronon required a certain amount of patience. McKay could speak an entire novel in the time it took Ronon to utter a single sentence. He was the master of brevity, which made every word just that much more important.

He finally continued, staring at his hands rather than looking at Beckett himself. "With everything, you know, going on. It was just pretty painful. So thank you for helping me through that."

"Are you through it, then?" For it appeared as if the pain had only just begun. Ronon seemed to consider this. He searched around for something else to occupy his hands, then gave up and rubbed the tops of his thighs in a rare gesture of anxiety.

Beckett smiled ruefully. "I think I ought to have prevented the bloody mess from happening in the first place. The best way to thank me ever, lad, is to keep yourself safe."

Both men looked around them, wondering again at how they'd come to be in this place.

….

After resting in turns, the pair continued their trek at daybreak. Ronon seemed completely well, healed in every way from his grievous injury. The Sateden had grudgingly allowed Beckett to check his belly again, and the large man smiled to himself, more than a little relieved to find that the wound had healed.

Neither man openly sought to discuss whether they had both lost their minds and imagined the entire horrid event.

They let their mutual reluctance to raise the question pass silently between them, then continued to walk, as if they could leave behind in the woods the troubling ideas that were now beginning to bedevil them.

At last, the trees thinned out. This was not a simple clearing, but the edge of the forest itself. Beyond a copse of tall grasses, the land sloped down before them, revealing a lush, open valley dipping towards a river that shone as afternoon sunlight cracked and shattered on its silver surface. Beckett was delighted to be out of the stifling woods, to be in a bright place where things like hope lived. He so wanted to run to the river and stretch himself out in its gentle current.

Thus, it was unfair beyond measure when Ronon tapped his shoulder.

"We are not alone here," he said softly, holding still and staring into the vegetation directly in front of them.

Carson followed his gaze. A cool breeze caught the tall grasses, moving them gracefully about. But some patches of grass did not sway enough. Others moved in a way that the wind could not have pushed them. Even without the talented eye for the natural world that Ronon possessed, Beckett noticed these details, now that he knew to look for them, now that his life depended upon it.

He could not see them in their entirety, but they were tiny people and there were many, many of them, approaching in silence.

"They have left an opening straight up the middle," Ronon rumbled quietly. "Run!"

Beckett needed no further encouragement. If Ronon said to run, he could do that, he _would_ do that until Ronon said to do something else. And it was particularly comforting that Ronon was running with him, rather than hanging back to make a stand against so many adversaries—however small they might be.

Gaining some distance by sheer stature, Beckett noticed a soft whooshing sound. He glanced behind to see some of his pursuers holding long, thin rods to their mouths. Darts. Damn it! He couldn't get away from the bloody darts no matter what world they landed on.

He heard a muffled grunt beside him and looked to see that Ronon had slowed.

"No! Ronon…" Beckett heaved himself back, reversing his steps, feet slipping on the matted grasses beneath them. Reaching Ronon, he grabbed his forearm and pulled with all his strength, willing the man to continue. The Runner lurched forward, determination set on his face. Two strides later, though, his legs gave way, sending him down into the grasses, where he lay, lazily staring up without seeing the clear blue sky above.

"Leave," he whispered to Beckett, an order, a plea.

Beckett never thought to comply. "Ronon! Up, man!" He panted in desperation, damning his own weakness. His terror turned to resignation faster than he ever thought it would. If this was to be the end of them both, at least neither would die alone.

He watched Ronon's eyes roll up and close, saw his body relax. Crouching, Beckett pulled from Ronon's shoulder a small barbed dart, which he threw down in disgust. He determined that Ronon still breathed and that his heart still beat, almost losing himself in this assessment.

A rustling sound nearby alerted Beckett to the presence of the others. He knew what was coming and stood to take it with a defiant pull in his heart. From behind him, a rush of air. He gasped at the pain of receiving his own dart, which he reached up and pulled from his neck. His vision dulled. He must have fallen, for the last thing he saw was a curious face peering down into his, the face of a child warrior so hateful he pitied him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five: Hubris Meets Its Match**

When Leslie Steward was the Mitre Fellow for Biology at Tokyo University, she received a _yukata_ as a gift from a gentleman friend with whom she shared an apartment. A _yukata_ is a traditional Japanese cotton housecoat. Leslie's was floor-length, creamy white, with pink and red blossoms printed on it. She loved it to death. Her Japanese boyfriend thought the garment went well with her large blue eyes and long, dark-brown hair, even if it was rather baggy on her slender build.

"Steward! Steward, wake up! It's Rodney McKay. Stew-ard!"

Leslie bolted upright in her bed. A crazy person was pounding on her door. No, wait… Dr. McKay. Huh. Right the first time. A crazy person was pounding on her door.

"Steward, get your ass out of bed!"

She grabbed her beloved _yukata_, slid it on quickly as she had done many thousands of times before—having worked her fellowship during early 1990s—and answered the door. There stood Dr. Rodney McKay, out of breath, sweating and red faced. He stared at her for a second, then swept his hands over his hair, an awkward gesture of greeting.

"Come with me," he said, waving her forward.

"Where…"

"Don't ask questions. Just come."

Still shaking off the dregs of sleep, Leslie could not imagine why the physicist needed her. She knew nothing of his research, and he was almost completely uninvolved with hers. Steward was presently studying the _Ceanorhabditis elegans_ nematode, a spunky little Mainland creature bestowed with the ability to smell the presence of Wraith enzyme. McKay had shown no interest in this project. Weeks had passed since she had last seen the man, which certainly beat having him breathing down her neck all the time.

"Dr. McKay…"

"Do…not…'doctor'…me!" He was running, now, pulling Leslie along. She lifted the hem of her _yukata_ to free her legs for long strides, bare feet slapping against the hallway's hard flooring.

"Can't someone else help you?" she panted, barely getting her own words out.

"No one. You're the last. You and Lorne. But he's military, useless with the science stuff."

"The last?"

He stopped and Leslie slid to a halt beside him. She pulled her disheveled robe more tightly about her and watched him expectantly.

"We…" he paused, breathless, oblivious to Steward's clothing issues. "We're the… only ones left…in the city. Everyone else is vanished… just, pffft! Gone!"

"Gone?"

"Why do you insist on repeating everything I'm telling you? Yes, they're gone. Must I draw you a schematic?"

She stared at Rodney McKay--who didn't care about her nematode research--and decided that he wasn't her type.

He began speaking again, this time slowing it up for the uninitiated one who accompanied him.

"I was working in my lab on a power booster to amplify the sensitivity of our long-range sensors. Burning the midnight oil as usual, because—what a surprise—no one else can keep this place from imploding. Bryson came in. You know him? Little squirrelly guy out of MIT? Did you know he's polydactyl? Six toes on each foot. But that's not the point. He was fooling around with some sort of device. Pushed a button or something and…he's gone. And everyone else is gone, as well, except the three of us. And…what is wrong with your face?"

In panic, Steward drew her hands over her cheeks.

"What? Am I…" she imagined all sorts of horrible things. Her face was her best asset, after her legs. And also the hair. And her intimate knowledge of shiatsu massage…

"You're frowning. Stop frowning. We're meeting up with Lorne in the control room." With that, he continued on his way, not yet running but working his way up to it again.

"How did you find me?"

McKay patted his jacket pocket. "Life signs detector."

Steward nodded to his back. Their destination was only a short distance away and she could see Lorne trying to work with the crystals of the consoles that arched around him like so many glowing pipe organs.

Entering the control room, the biologist noted the blinking lights and laptop computers with their indecipherable readouts. Obviously McKay was deluding himself. The ATA gene had dissolved in her system, and been excreted as so much useless waste. Even initialized equipment responded to her sluggishly. Bad luck, bad genes, she really couldn't tell.

Atlantis's Chief Science Officer rubbed his hands together purposefully. "Okay, people, we're going to have to work together to figure this thing out. Got it?"

Leslie nodded again, trying to look halfway intelligent. McKay must have noticed her befuddlement.

"Steward, are you with me on this?"

"I'm not familiar with your type of science, Doctor."

"Yes, yes, I know that you're more proficient with the squishy stuff. However, I need someone who has more than a simple _medulla oblongata_ inside their cranium," he said, impatiently blinking towards Lorne. The Marine looked uncertain about the specifics but seemed completely aware that he'd been insulted. "Now, you do what I say when I say it and we might all get to bed by morning. Questions?"

"No," she lied, completely confused but willing to go the distance. Besides, Lorne was there and he was adorable. She looked down at herself, at her lovely _yukata_ and chilly bare feet. It was all rather funny, actually, like those dreams where you're naked at work. This time, she practically was.


	6. Chapter 6

**Part Six: Meanwhile…**

Radek Zelenka rubbed gritty sleep from his eyes and pinched the bridge of his prominent nose right where his glasses had made a permanent indentation. He hated being roused in the middle of the night, especially when suffering from a sleep deficit to begin with. Listening to Bryson's anxious voice through his radio headset, he paused in mid-step while attempting to pull on his trousers, so fretfully tired that he couldn't yet move and comprehend at the same time. While his junior colleague paused his hysterical tirade, Zelenka continued to dress, uttering short, mindless blurbs of understanding.

"I see. Hmmm. Interesting."

Bryson babbled on and Zelenka removed his headset and pulled on a clean shirt, clean socks and his shoes. The earpiece lying on the chair hummed louder as Bryson's agitation grew. Radek returned his glasses to their perch on his nose and placed the communication unit back on his ear, pushing his unruly hair out of the way.

"I'll be there presently," he said, unwilling and almost unable to process anything at that very moment. A quick visit to the lav, and he was ready to face this thing, whatever it was.

He had left the lab only three hours ago, having worn himself to exhaustion once again, as he studied yet another marvel of Ancient technology. Still exploring unfamiliar portions of the city, many recon teams were returning with objects of interest or with reports of finding new laboratory areas.

A man like Zelenka, not so different from any of the other members of the science team, could spend the rest of his life in Atlantis and never come to the end of the discovery process. He accepted the fact that some newfound gadget might be dangerous to the ignorant or unenlightened. For all of his years as a scientist, he was a neophyte in many ways. This didn't frighten him for some reason. What made him nervous was the idea that someone else would suffer for something he'd done, as a result of triggering some new thing that he'd thought to be harmless.

Such was his concern the moment Zelenka stumbled into the lab, to see guilt and fear spread all over the face of Dr. Henry Bryson as he held out what came to be known as the Device.

…..

Pushing aside the stickier ethical issues of continuously monitoring the activity of every living thing in Atlantis (and most of the non-living ones, as well), Zelenka had to hand it to the Ancients: They were masters at the art of keeping themselves informed. Late one night not so long ago, he had brought up the city-wide biometric sensors and watched as little glowing dots moved around the detailed map. With so few people awake and moving about, it was easy to follow the life sign paths of these unsuspecting people as they made their ways through halls and rooms. Some of the living quarters held stationary individual dots, obviously someone sleeping, reading or perhaps looking out at the night sky contemplating their place in the universe. Some quarters showed the presence of two dots, and he wondered what might be happening there. On occasion, there were three dots or more. Zelenka never let his mind wander too far in that direction; he was curious, but not a voyeur, and he had no desire to be omniscient.

At this moment, he was reading old scans from a half-hour ago, when McKay had suddenly vanished from under Bryson's small but pointy nose. Since McKay had been in the lab, Zelenka kept his initial focus there. Life sign on. Life sign off. McKay there. McKay not there.

He replayed the moment of the disappearance several times, gulping weak, American-style coffee that most everyone seemed to find acceptable. Radek could barely taste it. At this rate, he'd have to consume an entire pot before even beginning to feel its effects. After reviewing of the sensor data several times, he noticed three rather interesting anomalies.

First, when McKay disappeared, Bryson's life sign appeared to glow brighter momentarily, most likely the device still in his hand activating in some way. Second, on a city-wide scan, at the same vanishing moment, a tiny blip of activity erupted in an area on the northeast pier. This place lay far beyond anywhere as yet explored, for it had been severely damaged while the city was killing itself under water and further plundered many months prior during the storm.

These blips, begging for attention, were not as urgent as the larger problem, evidenced by a third anomaly: The disappearances of four additional life signs, two from sleeping quarters and another two from the infirmary. They, too, were followed at almost the same instant by increased energy readings in both the distant pier and the device.

Zelenka stared at the monitor for a moment, stunned by the silent implication of what it meant that a total of five people were affected by the device while he had been fretting over the one. Suddenly feeling as if he'd recently dry-swallowed six or seven amphetamine tabs, the usually calm and composed scientist moved a shaking hand to his earpiece.

"Zelenka calling the infirmary," he whispered, not willing to further alarm anyone just yet. "Dr. Beckett, this is Radek Zelenka. Do you hear me?"

A life sign is a life sign. If an inanimate object suddenly shows evidence of being a living thing, no matter how briefly… He looked at Bryson animatedly discussing something with Elizabeth Weir, who had just stepped in the doorway. She had obviously heard his call to the infirmary, for she looked past the jittery Bryson, and was eyeing Zelenka intently. Bryson was now moving his arms about rapidly, swinging the device to and fro, caught up in explaining how not-at-fault was to Dr. Weir. Refocusing his scan solely on Bryson, Zelenka noticed that the little dot of life moved synchronously, matching the movement of the device in Bryson's hand. Suddenly aware of how precious it might be, Zelenka stepped up to calm the younger scientist and gently removed the contraption from his grasp.

Bryson turned to him. "It's really not my fault!" he brayed, like a smaller version of Rodney. Funny, the little man took to cowering whenever McKay was present. In the senior scientist's absence, Bryson had taken on all of his colleague's most annoying character traits. Zelenka hoped that Bryson was capable of the mental gymnastics of which McKay was so famous, for the time for that was at hand, as well.

"Dr. Bryson, pull yourself together!" Zelenka commanded, carefully laying the device on a lab table. "No one is blaming you for this. Calm down or you will not be able to think."

"I can think just fine, thank you," Bryson sniffed, offended.

"What do you know so far?" Zelenka shot back.

"The device. It did something to Dr. McKay. I don't know what. I didn't do anything!" He was panting, going pale.

With an eye roll exaggerated by thick eyeglass lenses, Zelenka lead Bryson to a chair and, without pausing, pushed the scientist's head between his knees. "Right. You know nothing. You will pass out and be unconscious and I will send you back to Earth because you waste my time," he said, by way of explanation. Leaning close enough to Bryson's left ear to notice bits of wax clinging to its shell-shaped surface, he intoned, "Better you should close eyes and whisper hello to ass than pass out in front of Dr. Weir. Yes?"

Bryson nodded.

"Take slow, deep breaths. In through nose, out through mouth. Understood?"

Again, a nod.

Leaving the stricken man, Zelenka approached Elizabeth and, speaking calmly but quickly, showed her the city-wide map. "I do not believe that Rodney was the only person affected by the device," he began.

He hated giving Elizabeth bad news


	7. Chapter 7

**Part Seven: Shoehorn Kismet**

McKay, Lorne and Steward had been stuck in the control room for so long that it had become rank with stress-induced sweat and general unwashedness, mixed with a subtle undercurrent of pheromones. McKay failed to notice any of this.

The console before which he stood sprang to life, throwing bits of information onto the monitor beyond. McKay seated himself and began to mutter hyperactively. The assorted colorful readouts told Steward nothing. She was bored silly and felt no desire whatsoever to assist the nematode-hating McKay.

The Major sat at his console, forlornly tapping the crystals. She never realized it before, but Lorne reminded her a little bit of Geoff Strawbridge, a performance artist she had bedded in the Lower West Side loft she rented while attending graduate school. This resemblance scared and intrigued her. Leslie Steward loved being scared and intrigued.

…..

Lorne was clueless when it came to understanding Dr. McKay. And Lorne considered himself something of a people person. Nice, mannerly, responsible and a good observer. Rodney McKay, absorbed in his task, said nothing to cogent to anyone. He muttered a constant stream of unintelligible half-sentences. Leslie Steward was nearby, set to the task of farting around with some technical…thing. She glanced at the Major.

"So. Lorne."

He approached her, keeping an eye on McKay, who kept calling him over, using him for some small task, then sending him away.

"Steward." He liked calling women by their last names. It was rather buddy-buddy that way.

"Tell me about yourself," she said lightly. "Since you're the last man on the planet and I'm apparently the last woman."

"What about him?" He slid his eyes towards McKay.

"Last purebred geek, totally different species," she responded.

Lorne liked that answer. He pulled up a chair next to Steward's, taking his time noticing her shoulders move beneath her robe's thin fabric and the silky baby hairs on the back of her neck.

…..

McKay thought that he sensed their presence. They were helpful like a shoehorn is helpful, inanimate objects to be used and then put aside. He was not sorry for ignoring them, nor did he cry big, fat tears when he snapped his fingers and, without looking up at either of them, called for "Person. Whoever. Come here."

Yet they were there, flesh and blood, nearby on some level. That was the only way to describe it, because he noticed their closeness only by the creepy sense of not-present that descended the moment they both disappeared.

"Lorne? Steward?" He lifted his hands from the console, momentarily afraid he'd triggered some strange reaction from the panel. "Uh, people?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Part Eight: Finding Home**

Beckett's return to consciousness was a highly unpleasant one. He lay in the tall grasses where he had fallen, driven to awaken by a thirst so deep it reached his soul. Although he was not completely alert, the need for water exceeded his body's need to sleep off the effects of the dart. So, after re-learning the finer points of standing, walking and using opposable thumbs, he rose unsteadily and staggered to the edge of the clearing, where a tiny creek flowed easily along the demarcation between forest and field. He lay belly-down on the flat, pebbly shore and scooped up handfuls of water, dozing when he could not keep his eyes open.

His thirst temporarily satisfied, Beckett rose from the creek and ambled back to the spot where he had lain. As he recalled, his and Ronon's pursuers were mere children, not that he'd ever wish to tangle with them again. From the trail of flattened glasses, it was obvious that his fellow Atlantean had been dragged from the area. The doctor plunged on through the clearing, following the tamped down vegetation. From time to time, he staggered from the after effects of the dart.

About a mile from his starting point, the grasses parted to reveal a crude dirt pathway of sorts. Not well worn, it did bear what looked like wheel ruts. The dragging signatures that Beckett had been following ended abruptly where the pathway began. Ronon had obviously been hefted onto a vehicle, perhaps a wagon or travois. No matter. As long as he kept to the dirt path, Beckett felt confident that he'd eventually locate Ronon.

Beckett had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. An hour, a day. What he gleaned from traipsing about the countryside was that his attackers had had a significant head start. Slowed by the drugs still running through his system, Beckett was aware that he wasn't exactly speed walking. Nevertheless, his clip must be better than that of children dragging 200 pounds of deadweight Satedan.

Hours passed, made more difficult by his constantly renewed thirst and unsteady footfalls. Whatever agent had been used against him packed an extremely hard wallop. The area was scored by small streams, which he took advantage of at every opportunity. He hoped that the water was free from parasites. Several small creatures resembling mice skittered away from the creek whenever he approached. Not a completely accurate bellwether of the water's purity, the animals' presence indicated that at the very least the water was harmless to some living things on this planet. Which was good enough for Carson Beckett today.

In time, he smelled the unmistakable aroma of burning wood. Slowing, Beckett left the pathway to make his way through scrub that grew up on either side. Distant voices drifted towards him, the words unclear but the intonation unmistakable. His heart sped up, trying to keep pace with his racing mind. Creeping closer to the voices, Beckett saw that he had come to a village of rammed earth shelters, the same color as the sandy creek mud he'd been kneeling and lying in periodically all day. A child of eight or so finished draping items on a line and skipped up to a woman who crouched next to a cooking pot heating on a small rock-base fire.

"Mither, a claes is dine!"

"Thank you, dochter," came the reply.

"Whan is twaloors? A am hungrysome!"

"In a wee, child. In a wee."

Beckett stood, stunned. This couldn't be…

"Is Eoin wi a unfreend?" the child went on.

"Aye, lass. He is."

That a place—a planet?—such as this existed was no surprise at all to Beckett. That the humans inhabiting the village were seemingly stuck in ancient times, living antiquities, was also not unexpected. That the villagers spoke perfect Gaelic-Scot was a complete surprise, however. In fact, hearing the villagers' voices made Beckett choke up, as if he were home again, in Glasgow.

Beckett furrowed his brow, wondering how any of this could be. Then another idea asserted itself, one that made much more sense to him. He was a Scot. He lived in the Pegasus galaxy. It followed that if he could be here, why couldn't dozens of others, hundreds even?

"Aye," he said to the air around him, believing the tale.

The questions, fairy tales and theories in Beckett's mind about these people departed the moment he realized that he had been surrounded by the same youngsters that had rendered him unconscious before and that they were about to put him out a second time. They revealed themselves suddenly, rising from their hiding places in the grass, blow darts at the ready.

"Nae!" he cried, in his native tongue, raising his arms in surrender, not completely recovered from his first dart and unwilling to take another. "I'm a friend! I won't harm ye!"

The children looked on confusedly, then turned to the tallest among them, a boy of fourteen or so. He lowered his weapon, eyeing Beckett curiously. Seeing the child's pause as an opportunity, Beckett continued.

"My friend…" he moved his left hand upwards, indicating a very tall individual, "He and I are lost. Have you seen him?"

The boy looked beyond Beckett towards a hut, from which emerged a slightly built young man carrying a rucksack.

"Eoin!" called the boy. "Someone has come looking for the monster."

The man named Eoin stopped short. Then, placing two fingers between his lips, he whistled loudly, sending shrill tones echoing through the valley. Within moments, other men—equally small and slender—came running, each armed with spears or dart blowers.

Turning his full attention to Beckett. Eoin watched him warily. "You are here to claim the beast that we captured?"

"He is not a beast. He is a man like you an' me."

Eoin laughed gently. "You are confused."

"We don't know how we got here, but we arrived together. Please, I am a doctor and the man I was with is my patient. If we can, we will leave if you wish, but I won't go without him."

Eoin approached slowly. He paced around the doctor, eyeing his uniform, seemingly trying to look within to the man's soul. The others—women and children and armed men—stayed perfectly quiet but alert, anticipating a sudden attack. Beckett, unaccustomed to these people, had no idea what they loved and feared and needed. Having stated his case, he could only hope for the best.

Having come round to face him again, Eoin spoke. "This thing is your friend?" Beckett nodded. "He is unwell. Cara oil doesn't agree with him. Come, you will see."

…..

Ronon lay on a pallet under a canvas awning, perfectly still save for the work of agonal breathing. Carson fell to his knees beside him, assessing the large man's condition. Eoin was correct; Ronon was very ill.

"Eoin, you gave him more…what…cara oil, did you say, after he was darted?"

The young man answered with a questioning look.

"See, boy! How much oil did he receive?"

Eoin looked to a younger child, who stood by the doorway. The child trotted up and whispered into Eoin's ear.

"I don't know. A short while ago he awoke and became unruly. We had to give him more."

"Why did you bring him here and leave me in the grass?"

Eoin scoffed and gestured towards the unconscious man. "Look at him! A wild man!"

"He's _not_ a wild man!"

"Enough!" The slight fellow walked away in disgust, then turned and stood expectantly, waiting for Beckett to finish.

Carson's heart sank. He continued his assessment, noted that Ronon had no radial pulse, that his skin was pale and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. His noisy respirations were accompanied by the struggling use of accessory muscles, as his body forced his lungs to expand and take in every molecule of air possible.

Carson felt himself close to panic. "Please, I need an antidote to the cara oil. I need to know about it if I'm going to help him. Has this happened to anyone before?"

Eoin's eyes met Carson's. There was a glint of fear in there, Carson thought, as if the younger man felt threatened by someone trying so desperately to save another's life.

"We have nothing for him. No cure. The oil is usually harmless, but sometimes this happens. We use it to catch animals for food. Sometimes we use it on enemies like him."

"He is not your enemy! We came here by mistake."

"You must leave him, let him die in peace." Eoin moved to the draw Carson away, but the doctor crouched closer to Ronon's struggling form, defiantly staring at his youthful adversary. Carson hoped that Ronon was unconscious in his death throes.

Eoin's voice rose with outrage. "We do not suffer ourselves to watch the dying pass. We must go now!"

This made no sense to Carson, of course, who would have shed body parts rather than leave willingly. Ronon was clearly dying. His passing would come soon. Not knowing what else to do, he took his patient's hand and murmured quiet platitudes. He did not notice as Eoin readied another dart. And he felt only remorse this time, when the stinging prickle hit its mark


	9. Chapter 9

**Part Nine: Entitlement**

On the one hand, being completely alone gave him the quiet he needed to think and work and, of course, think. On the other hand, if a genius did something immensely brilliant and there was no one around to hear about it, did that brilliance actually happen?

Conversely, if a lesser colleague did something stupid and McKay wasn't there to publicly correct him, would that person ever see the error of his ways?

Neither Lorne nor Steward stood at the intellectual borders of genius or stupidity. They were average in all respects. Still, he needed them for their presence, like having someone around to hold down the center of a piece of ribbon being tied into a bow: He didn't need them for anything other than the tip of one finger, perhaps, but that fingertip made all the difference.

Now they were gone. McKay sat listening to the whir of machinery, the buzz of light ballasts. He tapped his headset.

"This is Dr. Rodney McKay. If anyone can hear this, please respond."

He tapped up the city-wide biometrics, looking for life signs. None appeared. With a sigh, he brought up a diagnostics grid, seeking information on energy fluctuations in his lab, in the city itself. Nothing unusual. Nothing interesting, either. Standing to stretch his back, McKay realized that he was bored, as if having no one around took away the impetus to care.

Then he remembered.

The city was completely empty of human occupants….but McKay wasn't necessarily alone. The city… Now, the city had no one to talk to but him. At last. Like a wallet left unattended, she was ripe for plundering.

The chair belonged to him, now. Sheppard had never been particularly forthcoming about how he dealt with Atlantis as an entity and Carson was completely phobic about everything. Incredibly, he man who discovered the ATA gene was himself utterly petrified about using it. McKay took fiendish delight in sitting the physician on the Throne of Atlantis and watching him quiver like a frightened rabbit. It was almost as amusing as watching Zelenka nervously prepare to go off world though the big, bad stargate.

If anyone were entitled to possess the soul of the city, it was McKay. He wanted to manipulate it, make it submit to his will because he more than any other knew what to do with it. He hadn't spent more than a few minutes in the chair himself. Successful recipients of Beckett's gene therapy had entre but no special privileges. Atlantis liked them well enough; she just didn't seem to respect them. So McKay had taken to throwing Carson or Miko or Lorne into the seat, ignoring their pleas for mercy. They acted as if they were capable of destroying all life in the universe by simply planting their butts down in the chair.

McKay chuckled with delight. The chair activated as he sat upon it. He felt himself diving toward connection. He felt like a swimmer stroking downward to the ocean floor, as hard as it was for him to imagine such a thing.

Atlantis resisted, as he suspected she would. She wanted someone else, of course, Sheppard or anyone fortunate enough to be carrying around a home-grown strand of genetic material that made them…not better. Different. Freaks, almost. Irritating people.

McKay was a true Renaissance Man, blessed with an off-the-scales intellect that everyone surely envied even if they refused to show it. How insulting that Atlantis would prefer a lesser mind as long as the double helix beneath it were prettier. Becoming annoyed, McKay quit asking for a conversation and instead demanded that Atlantis respond.

"Enough," he said. "Tell me what the hell is going on!"

The dive wouldn't end. She wasn't giving up anything. He dug in, holding his breath until his lungs felt strained to bursting, airless with effort.

"Tell me!" he repeated, desperate not for answers, now, but for obedience. He had the gene. This wasn't him asking her out to a movie, this was Dr. Rodney McKay taking that which was rightfully his, expecting cooperation in return.

McKay was not a talented soothsayer. However much he wanted to work at this until he possessed everything the city had to offer, the effort began to drain him. Atlantis could take as well as receive. Just as exhaustion began to creep over him, it happened. He connected. Not for long, not the protracted embrace he wanted, but a quick enveloping submersion followed by a buoyant sense of rising.

The city responded half-heartedly, like a blind date who liked the flowers but detested bonbons. With a mental shrug, McKay took whatever Atlantis was willing to give, for the moment.

Now Atlantis pulled back a single curtain, lifted her skirt to show him the tiniest bit of lace at the bottom of her petticoat. McKay saw within his mind a giant city map, zooming in and out of places familiar and new. He felt the city's coyness, its willful limits in this. The map moved jerkily to and fro, then stopped. There before his closed eyes hung a diagram of the southeast pier. A red arrow pointed to a tiny room tucked away in the bowels of it. Next to the arrow the words "You Are Here" appeared in red.

Smirking, McKay could not resist his own sarcasm. "Welcome to Atlantis Mall. The Sharper Image is located on the second floor next to the food court."

The city did not get his joke.

"Droll today, aren't we?"

Atlantis didn't respond to this, either. It was telling him something, of course, and McKay assumed he was to make haste to the pier.

…..

He was in the chair room.

Then he was in the humid, smelly confines of a structure on the southeast pier.

McKay could have questioned this, for even in this odd galaxy instantaneous travel without an obvious mode of transport was something of a rarity. Having crossed his mind that it was indeed strange, the idea passed quickly enough.

Coming to a small room no larger than a walk-in closet, McKay noticed the blinking lights of one of the naquadah generators within. He loved these machines and hated to have had to sacrifice two of them. Necessity was certainly the mother of invention; he simply wished that the mother of invention made naquadah generators a whole lot easier to build.

Curiously, this generator was humming loudly, like a threatening growl. Naquadah generators typically made a high-pitched singing sound or none at all. Now that he was thinking about it, a naquadah generator had not been placed in this part of the city at all. And, now that he was loosening up all of the dreamlike crap that was floating in his head, McKay realized—for the first time? Again? He couldn't remember—that there was no logical explanation of how he'd arrived this close to the edge of the city in such a short amount of time. No transporters delivered here; he could not recall walking very far.

"I'm asleep," he muttered, letting his wide eyes gaze around, expecting to see fantastic creatures or armies of terrifying beings, simply because that is what his dreams had consisted of lately.

Nothing. Only the bare room with the generator and its suspicious-sounding hum. He recalled a recent nightmare in which he was walking in a store back in Toronto, back home. He passed shelves stocked with everyday things, like soap and shaving cream, ballpoint pens and greeting cards. And, for some reason, these innocuous items scared the living daylights of out him. He awoke from that dream in a cold sweat, heart pounding in his throat. Now he neared the generator, an everyday thing in Atlantis, and shook with fear at the tiny noise emanating from it.

He had endured a number of impressively huge surprises of lateApproaching the power source, he told himself to be careful, that he didn't want anymore surprises. That is what he mumbled—"No surprises. No surprises."—as he reached out to touch the generator's shiny outer casing. He thought of pens and pencils, cotton balls and aspirin. Everyday things on Earth. That is what he thought about the moment his fingertips barely settled on the base.

It was so fast, McKay had no time to withdraw his hand, let alone fully comprehend how stupid he had been. The jolt killed him instantly, leaving a small burn on his left hand, blowing off his right leg and leaving a mess in between.


	10. Chapter 10

**Part Ten: Pod People**

Tired of the taste of coffee, Zelenka had switched to tea for sustenance. He reminded himself for the millionth time to request a better blend for the expedition, Earl Grey perhaps or a good orange pekoe. Also kolaches to go with it.

On the city-wide sensors, he noted four life sign dots—Colonel Sheppard's recon team—moving at a good clip towards the northeast pier, where the brief flash of activity had occurred the second McKay and the rest had vanished from the city.

His headset vibrated with the sound of Col. Sheppard's lazy drawl.

"_Zelenka, how close are we to the source of your little blip?" _

Checking the previous scan that showed the tell-tale burst of power, Zelenka responded. "You are approaching the area right now. Do you see…"

"_Holy cow!"_

Stiffening, Zelenka listened, eyes wide with anxiety. Until now, he had been moderately concerned but confident that whatever was happening with McKay and the rest was relatively benign, if quite mysterious. Now he wasn't so sure.

"Colonel Sheppard?" he ventured, trying to stop the tremble in his voice.

"Colonel, what's going on?" This was Elizabeth, who had been monitoring Sheppard's reconnaissance mission from her office.

"…_pack them up carefully. Doc, we've got some weird little…I guess you'd call them pods…down here. Five of them are glowing rather nicely. The rest don't seem to be active. Can't tell what's making them run. They're not attached to anything, just sitting on a shelf. So… What are you talking about?"_

He paused to speak to another member of his team.

"Colonel, is there a problem?"

"_Just that two of the pods stopped glowing all of a sudden. The rest seem okay. Hope we didn't, you know, _kill_ anyone."_

As the pods on the northeast pier ceased their activity, Zelenka noticed two life signs return to one of the sleeping quarters. He let this new event settle in his mind for a few seconds.

"Colonel, you will bring all of these, uh, pods to the lab, yes?"

"_Sure thing, Doc."_

"Elizabeth, come to the lab as well, please. I have something else rather interesting to show you."

…..

Lorne awoke in his bed. Right next to Dr. Leslie Steward. He sort of remembered making love to her, not that science geeks were his type. He also kind of, almost, remembered kayaking. And also being the last real man left on Atlantis. Or something like that. He was very, very tired, though, as if he had been up most of the night. Falling into a slumber, he had time to utter a quick, "Huh?" before sleep captured him. Neither he nor Steward heard the various well-meaning rescuers prying open the door to his room.

…..

McKay lay on the floor of his laboratory, trying to remember…something. Something about pens and cotton balls.

"Huh," he said noncommittally, frightened for his body, concerned about hypoglycemia, about a heart attack or a stroke. He worried about these things all the time, that they would incapacitate or kill him. He'd willed his notes—the unclassified ones—to Rutgers, and it scared him to think what that institution might do with them. Letting his mind wander, he half-heartedly considered whether the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab might be a better place, except that they were lightweights on the theoretical side of things. Yes, if he died…

He sat bolt upright. Checking to ensure that he still owned all of his limbs, he jumped to his feet. McKay didn't remember dying per se. He recalled the _idea_ of dying, the last thought-flinch of "Oh, shit" before parts of him flew in various directions. He had read somewhere that people are unable to remember pain as a concrete thing. The concept of pain lingers, however, and in McKay's case, this concept felt pretty freaking concrete.

Now he was alive. Again or still, he could not tell.

Atlantis seemed to enjoy surprising him, tempting him with tiny eyeblinks of joy and wonder, followed by gut-wrenching horror. While at Northeastern, he'd met a woman who enjoyed pulling at his chest hair after making love. After sex, actually, since there wasn't much love shared on either of their parts. Their affair lasted several weeks, something of a record for McKay. But this woman… He gave her up when she began pulling at his chest hair _during_ sex, which made the whole thing more painful than erotic.

Could he honestly say that Atlantis was behaving any different? Not today, certainly. She had killed then revived him. Was this her way of making him choose between pleasure and pain? The tease.

McKay noticed the city-wide map was still up on his laptop. The southeast pier now showed a life sign, a single glowing ball of hope. He raised his head to address his mistress.

"Are you shitting me?" he asked her. "Someone's down there?"

He waited several moments for a reply that he knew wouldn't come. Multiple attempts to hail the dot's owner failed.

This time, he would be prepared. Grabbing his laptop, McKay stuffed it into a large "go bag," which contained such basic necessities as prescription drugs, energy bars, bottled water, a toothbrush. He paused for a moment, recalling the terror he now associated with everyday things, then pushed those thoughts away. Someone was out in the southeast pier. This time he wouldn't touch the naquadah generator. No, siree.

…..

The southeast pier resembled every other sea-level part of Atlantis—damp hallways, disheveled rooms the purpose had yet to be determined, the smell of stale air and a bit of mildew. Approached the most distant part of the pier, McKay spotted the generator room. In the quiet emptiness he noticed the hum, which he now believed was a grounding problem with the unit, nothing particularly urgent but something to keep in mind. It annoyed him that he had rationalized the unit here to begin with, since the plain fact of the matter was that there…was no fact at all. He operated four naquadah generators and none of them was located in the south pier.

Therefore, this one was a figment of his imagination.

Still…

"I am a stupid genius," he said to his dripping surroundings. The lack of response irritated him. Certainly, simple common sense should have told him to leave the generator alone, but here, in this lonely place, he doubted his ability to think of consequences. With a sigh, he ambled on. The portable LSD indicated the presence of a lone life form in the generator room.

"Who's there!" he hollered through the doorway, trying to sound imperious rather than terrified. "I know you're nearby, so answer me. Steward? Lorne? That you?"

He hoped that the barefoot woman would poke her head out and respond, but silence prevailed. Moving forward slowly, he again allowed his comforting litany to accompany him. "No surprises. No surprises." Steps from the doorway, he considered that the very act of expecting the unexpected could, in fact, help him keep it together when the shit began hitting the fan.

Entering the room, McKay realized that he had brought his 9 mm to bear without even thinking about it. He hoped that it would suffice to protect him.

But he was so, so wrong.

"_One minute to self-destruct."_

"WHAT!"

Letting a few seconds evaporate around him, McKay felt his heart practically fibrillate in his chest.

"SELF-fucking-DESTRUCT?"

This was improbable, impossible. It took two individuals with high-level clearances to initiate the self-destruct protocol. He was, as far as he knew, the only one still in the city who possessed the authority to do this. Checking his LSD, McKay noted that the glowing dot in the generator room had disappeared. Quickly flipping open his laptop, he looked about for some way to interface with Atlantis. As if reading his thoughts, a small console appeared to his left. Not questioning this bizarre materialization, McKay connected his computer and opened up the city-wide scan, once again. Two life forms appeared in the main control room. Someone must have come back!

"_Forty-five seconds to self-destruct_."

He tapped his headset. "This is McKay to control. Talk to me!"

His headset shrieked in response, the sound piercing his eardrum like a hot wire. Pulling the headset from his head, McKay shouted into the mouthpiece.

"I'm on the south pier. Tell me what's happening!"

No one spoke, at least not in a language that McKay could understand. His ears rang with the echoes of the drilling whines and with the pounding of his overworked heart. He threw down the headset in disgust.

"_Thirty seconds to self-destruct_."

Typing furiously, McKay attempted to override the self-destruct process. He knew all the tricks, had stayed up late into the night tickling Atlantis under the chin to get the talk-around codes to extract her deepest, darkest secrets. He had been only partially successful then, but maybe, just maybe, he'd acquired enough of the good stuff to make this work. Taking a deep breath to still his shaking hands, he worked and worked to get to that level where his city would save itself just for him, because it wanted him so.

"_Ten seconds to self-destruct_."

Typing, typing, typing, thinking of what to do now, what to do next.

"Bitch! You're killing me!"

He ignored the rest of the countdown. Focused on his goal, Atlantis's last and best hope closed his eyes at the last moment, when he felt the first explosion, felt the south pier and himself within it capsize into the dark ocean, which, considering everything, seemed like such a stupid way to die.


	11. Chapter 11

**Part Eleven: Wash Away Your Sins **

McKay came to on the floor of a hallway in the south pier. His laptop lay beside him, damp with seawater but surprisingly resilient. Shifting his eyes to take in as much of his surroundings as possible without actually sitting up, he noted several large cracks in the walls and the restive trickles of water that seeped through them.

Letting out a dismal sob, the physicist knew without looking for further proof that he was underwater, sinking to the bottom in a leaking chunk of infrastructure.

"I can't do this again," he cried, pushing himself off the floor, trying to brush away defeat and wondering whether he had the guts to eat his own 9mm.

Shifting that idea to a middle burner, he fumbled for the LSD, which had somehow come to reinhabit his jacket pocket. His mind was clearing a little bit, enough for him to understand that the power had not yet been extinguished in this sinking part of the city. Glancing at the besotted laptop, McKay was stunned to see a whole slew of life forms in the main control area, milling about as if nothing of particular note had happened to the city. In fact, the city-wide map showed Atlantis to be completely intact.

Throughout this entire experience, McKay had not felt weary despite his physical exertion. Pain, yes. Dismay, indeed. But not hungry in the usual sense, or sleepy or aching from so much running around. Almost as if he had not really experienced anything at all.

"Huh. Weird." McKay had lost his headset in one scuffle or another. Placing his hand to his ear anyway, he recalled watching Teyla do the same thing a month ago while laid out in the infirmary delirious with fever. Her flushed skin had felt blisteringly hot as she burned through her illness, and McKay sat with her, trying to help keep up her spirits. Throughout this difficult time, the beautiful Athosian had repeatedly placed her hand to her ear and called to her teammates.

"Colonel Sheppard, I am lost!" she had cried. And "We are trapped underground. Aiden, please find us!" He had stayed with her, anxiously trying to comfort her until Carson noted his distress and sent him away to collect himself.

As he stood in the south pier hallway, alive again, McKay wondered whether he was now the one who was ill, lying abed in the infirmary, instead of being dead and alive and dead and alive again, and that Teyla sat beside him as a fever blew out his rare and masterful brain.

He was just getting through the layers of these ideas when the alarm sounded again and he heard the dreadful refrain:

"_One minute to self-destruct_."

…..

Carson drank again and again from the pitcher he found in the room when he awoke. His thirst was still raging, unquenchably intense. Perhaps something in the drug or in the water itself was drying him up from the inside out. The more he drank, the harder it became to slake his thirst, until the world around him was nothing but water and need, more water and more need.

Eoin banged open the flimsy door to the hut where Beckett had been taken after being darted a second time. The smaller man brought up with him a woman about Beckett's age, pulling her by the wrist. She glared at Beckett, harsh lines of a hard life etched in her face. The doctor stood, regarding them with a hangdog expression.

"This is Bettina," Eoin stated flatly. "She is for you." With that he pushed her at Beckett, who reached out to prevent her from colliding with him.

Involved in his own problems, Beckett waved off the pair.

"I must check on Ronon. I'm not interested in your offer." With a glance at each of them, he turned away.

"You give up a fine woman like this for a savage?"

Beckett knew what Eoin was implying. It didn't bother him and, in fact, he found it rather amusing, although not nearly as ironic as referring to Ronon as a savage. Here stood before a man of his own kind, living a short, raw life of violence, in a place where a child wasn't a child any longer once he was old enough to hold a weapon. Arguing with Eoin served no purpose. He was beyond reason, had probably never used it to begin with.

"Please let me go to my friend. Then we will talk."

Eoin glared at Beckett, then turned to Bettina, who had yet to release the hatred from her eyes. With a curt nod, he held open the door, allowing the doctor to pass unimpeded.

…..

This was the shock of which he'd spoken to Kate Heightmeyer. The cause didn't matter; once deep shock developed, death eventually followed. A day, a week. He'd had a patient once who had gone into shock, been revived and finally succumbed almost a year later. Beckett had spent that year fighting the inevitable. Ronon would not take nearly that long.

The packed-earth hut was stuffy, yet too cool for one as ill as Ronon. A light burlap sheath lay near the pallet where the sick man struggled against the poison within him. Beckett tucked the cloth around his patient, hoping to palliate what he could not treat. Ronon was suffering in a way he'd never witnessed before. The raw power of unimpeded death was foreign to him. In time, he took to reciting memorized passages from the Episcopal bible, and also a bit of Norman McCaig, which he remembered from his undergraduate days.

The people of this place would not allow him to touch his friend now that it was plainly clear that he was beyond recall. They were a strange tribe, indeed, willing to send out their children to kill and yet frightened down to the marrow of death itself, so terrified that they paralyzed themselves with panic rather than try to stop it.

Beckett sat beside his friend like this for an hour or so. Ronon clung to life with unsurprising tenacity, for Carson knew no one as skilled as he at the art of survival. Before noon, the doctor, protesting loudly until Eoin had threatened to dart him again, was taken to a different place, a hut on the edge of the village with blocked windows and a locked door. It was very quiet there, so quiet that all the rest of that day and on into the evening Beckett could hear the sounds of Ronon's last breaths.


	12. Chapter 12

**Part Twelve: Prayer for the Living**

"Your friend died in the night."

These simple words hit Carson like a sledgehammer, even though he expected them. Bettina took Carson's arm, pulled him up off the straw mattress on which he'd slept and motioned onwards. Eoin was obviously still hoping to distract Carson with this flea-bitten woman.

It was very early morning, when everything looked cold and blue as the sky began to lighten. The woman was taking him to the place where Ronon had breathed his last. Carson did not believe the warrior was dead, would not trust the words of these odd, superstitious people over his own assessment.

"We are sorry," Bettina interrupted his thoughts, her harsh voice grating. "He could not tolerate the cara oil. Most strange. A large one like that, when you, so much smaller, are unharmed. He was a good friend of yours?"

Carson nodded.

"Using the oil was necessary. We must be cautious of strangers. The Wraith use humans as spies. Did you know that?"

He nodded again, wondering for a moment how a human could resolve to turn against his own kind. Then he thought of all the wars that had been fought on Earth, and a great chasm of sadness opened up within him. Bettina was watching his face, Carson knew, searching for signs of duplicity, for the woman didn't trust him, probably never would, although she seemed eager enough to sleep with him.

They walked to a hut, strode between villagers, many of them youngsters, some of whom followed them inside.

…..

"_One minute to self-destruct."_

It was happening again.

He was kitted up to the max this time, armed for bloody combat. Somehow his headset had reasserted itself in its proper location. Tapping it, his stomach sinking at the futility of it, McKay gave fate another chance.

"McKay to Control. Somebody speak to me!"

To his utter surprise, someone answered, an unfamiliar voice breathless with fear. "McKay! Thank God you're here. Someone's overloaded the naquadah generator in the southeast pier. It's been patched into the generator system and, once it goes critical, the rest of the units will detonate. Can you power down the unit in your area?"

This was too easy.

"_Forty-five seconds to self-destruct."_

Without taking time to respond, he plunged through the hallways, sliding on the angles and gaining traction on the inside corners. His P90 bounded against his chest and the knife stuck beneath the waistband of the trousers nicked his skin as he ran. None of this mattered right then, as the generator room came into view. The naquadah unit seemed so small and innocent, hardly the cause of Atlantis's destruction, but he still had time to bring it off line.

"_Thirty seconds to self-destruct."_

Wouldn't take but a moment, really, as McKay stormed through the last several yards to the room's opening.

"Okay, okay, don't panic. You can do this."

At last, he would do it right this time, save Atlantis and everyone in it. Again. No matter what came before, this time it would work.

"_Fifteen seconds to self-destruct."_

So it felt devastating, scathing, just completely _wrong_ when he entered the room and found himself slammed to the floor a half-second away from his goal. He panted against the cold, hard surface and then turned to see standing above him the embodiment of every living thing that had ever terrified him, a life form that morphed from Wraith to a floating black vision, to his dead colleagues, his sister's off spring, Cindy the post-grad in his bed, Ford packed with enzyme and Ronon just being so damned _big_.

"_Ten…nine…eight…"_

"Oh, no," he whispered, as his attacker pinned him down, placed his foot—her foot, its foot, its _feet_, its hand, its self--on McKay's chest.

"_Seven…six…five…"_

"Oh, yes," they all said in return.

"_Four…three…two…"_

…..

Beckett approached slowly, feeling the draw of dread from his gut. There was no doubt who lay beneath the soiled sheet, for few people he knew were as tall. The smallest child of all toddled up and tugged the covering away. Beckett jerked his head in alarm, then let his eyes still on the form once again. Ronon was, in this place, a good friend. His only friend. He was so young, a fighter, like Teyla. This galaxy produced the fiercest people Beckett had ever known. Such a pity, Ronon dead in his youth, killed by people younger still. He would have taken some peace if Ronon had not died in solitude, but Carson had failed at that.

"What are you doing?" asked one of his captors, stepping forward with a crossbow cradled stiffly in his arms.

"Lad?" Beckett looked up curiously. "You mean you don't know?"

The boy shook his head, his eyes still taking in Beckett's every movement.

"I'm crying, son," the doctor replied, wiping his cheeks against his sleeve.

The children present looked at each other uneasily. Then the leader took another step forward, anger creasing his brow.

"Stop that! We will not have that here!"

But Beckett was beyond caring, as he stood next to the funerary dais where Ronon had been laid out, hopeless tears overwhelming him. He could not have stopped and he did not stop, even when the boy came ever closer, more threatening this time. And it seemed strange to Beckett that nothing scared these people nearly as much as pure grief. Perhaps muscle was all that they knew. Perhaps a man crying for a fallen comrade was beyond their scope of reference.

He laid his hand on Ronon's chest, willing it to rise again. The children were murmuring, now, thoroughly confused, becoming agitated, looking to the eldest for interpretation.

"He is dead. He will not breathe again."

"I know that, son."

"You will not touch him. It is a sin to touch the dead!"

Beckett looked up at the boy, unwilling to be cowed. "Listen you, I was precious little help when he was dyin'. At least let me help send off his poor soul."

"It is a sin! Stop or I will kill you, now."

Beckett closed his eyes for a moment, weighting his options. Then he considered that he didn't really care any longer.

"Do what you have to do," he intoned. "I'm going where he is, anyway."

He expected a little more time to mourn, a few moments at least before his last. Funny how life ends like that: When you think you have a while to go before the chariot comes and takes you, you look out the window and see it parked right in front of your house. Just like that.

And just like that, the boy drew his weapon closer to his body, aimed it carefully at Carson Beckett's chest and fired.


	13. Chapter 13

**Part Thirteen: What the Hell?...**

"It is still not working. Bryson, what are you doing?"

The smallest normally proportioned adult male that Radek Zelenka had ever seen—let alone worked with—raised his tiny head above the glowing control panel. The slightly built Czech empathized.

Bryson blinked curiously. "I'm sorry. This particular console is unfamiliar to me."

Taking a moment to fold his frustration neatly away for expression elsewhere, Zelenka tapped the younger man and gently moved him aside. Bryson had correctly rerouted the power supply. Fine job, actually. The alligator clips attached to the device held it tightly in their tiny jaws.

Weir entered the laboratory and, with nary a sideways glance, approached Zelenka for answers.

"Talk to me," she said, without preamble.

The Czech noted that Elizabeth's locks were almost as messy as his own and that her large, grey eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion. He tried to surreptitiously smooth his hair but gave up before his hands got halfway to the crown of his head.

"It is complicated, so have patience. We're not completely certain what happened, but Dr. Bryson and I believe that the device—either by accident or by design—sought out and detected all Atlantis personnel exhibiting a particular brain wave frequency."

Elizabeth was a very intelligent woman. That was one reason why Zelenka respected her so much. As a diplomat, however, she dealt with generalities such as trade, war, peace and leadership. In science, it was all about the details.

"You see, there are four named types of brainwave activity: _beta_, which is the waking pattern, _alpha_, which is the light sleep phase, _theta_, which is a deep meditative state and _delta_, also known as the REM sleep. As far as we can tell, each of the missing individuals was experiencing a specific brainwave frequency of 9.357 megahertz, which is in the mid-range of the _alpha_ phase. This equates to light sleep."

"But I thought you said that Dr. McKay was awake in his lab with you."

"That is partially correct. He was here in the lab, working on boosting power to the long-range sensors. However, he has been engaged in this project for several days in a row. I suspect that he has not slept more than three hours a night. It is highly likely that at the moment he vanished he had actually drifted off to sleep or else was engaging in a form of meditation. Either way, his brain wave frequency would have had to be exactly 9.357. The same is true for the others."

Elizabeth crossed her arms and looked askance, processing this information.

"You know all of this how?" she queried, skepticism shading her words.

"We exposed the device to several types of stimuli, including light, heat, moisture, electrical impulses and sound. It responded only to the electrical waveform frequency signature of 9.357 MHz. Dr. Bryson's work with biophysics is especially useful in this respect, for he was able to cross reference our findings with previous work done on brainwave functions."

Zelenka nodded to his colleague, who poked his head up over the edge of the console at the sound of his name.

Elizabeth acknowledged Bryson's presence, then turned back to Zelenka, who was awaiting her next question. "You said that Dr. Beckett and Ronon were affected simultaneously. What is the likelihood of two people in the same room having exactly the same frequency?"

Bryson stepped forward, his eager face lighting up with the answer.

"Various cultures have been able to prompt meditative states by creating an external rhythmic pattern."

Elizabeth regarded him blankly.

"What I'm saying is that a drum beating a particular rhythm at a particular speed can bring an awake individual into the _alpha_ state in short order. It is similar to becoming hypnotized by a slowly ticking metronome. When he disappeared, Dr. Beckett was running a hematocrit on a patient, using a centrifuge, which does, in fact, produce a metronomic-type rhythm. This centrifuge is within hearing distance of Dr. Beckett's office and also the bed on which Ronon was lying. Thus, it seems rather obvious that at the moment I triggered the device, both the doctor and Ronon were within the _alpha_ frequency range. At 9.375, in fact. There is no other explanation at this time."

"And they are where?"

He shrugged, then straightened, seeing the stricken expression on her face.

"The pods retrieved from the northern part of the city contained a powdery substance. The powder in two of the pods disappeared when Major Lorne and Dr. Steward seemingly reappeared in his quarters. Not coincidental, I'm sure. Also, the device is producing small amounts of energy. Right now Dr. Zelenka and I are attempting to connect the device with one of the consoles to extract data, images, whatever may be stored inside, if, in fact, it has any storage capacity at all. When Dr. Steward and Major Lorne awaken, perhaps they will be able to shed some light on the situation. Until then…"

He sighed, despondent. Returning to the console, the younger scientist quivered with barely concealed anxiety. "I'm sorry, Dr. Weir. I had no idea the device would activate, no idea that it would do anything at all. Until that very moment in the lab, it appeared to be dead."

"And now?"

His eyebrows rose in interest. "Actually, if you asked me how it's acting at this very moment, I'd say that it seems to be…uh…alive."


	14. Chapter 14

**Part Fourteen: The Warrior Returns**

Carson Beckett should have been a gentle country physician, making house calls for children with chicken pox and to elderly folks with gout. He should have stayed with his Mum, until he met a fine woman to marry.

He had tried to keep up his courage, thought about his Mum. She had raised him well; he was kind beyond kindness, compassionate to a fault. What would Mum think if she knew he had opened the Devil's passageway by tinkering around with DNA and RNA and retroviruses? If no good deed ever went unpunished, he would surely burn in Hell for eternity for the misguided work he'd done.

A vision of the Hoffans blew in on this ill wind. How desperate had they been to destroy half of their civilization hoping that the other half would survive? How much suffering did a people have to endure for that to make any sense at all? Did they regret their choice as he regretted his part in making it possible?

Carson Beckett's consciousness returned like a slap in the face. There…before him lay Ronon Dex, gut shot and shocky, almost at the point of no return.

Then Ronon lay dead on the dias.

A moment later, they were both in the infirmary with its potions and machines.

Then in the rammed-earth hut and the warrior had been killed by a touch of poison.

Beckett could not work this out, how he came to be in two places at once. In the back of his mind, in the shark brain, it made sense to him. He took comfort in it. Once he was home again, as if Atlantis were home, he would rest easy. Ronon would be alive, clawing himself back to health.

Ronon had trusted him, trusted them all. Like a soldier placed in harm's way for no damn good reason, he deserved much, much better from those he trusted. Now that the young man had come in from the wilderness to fight the Wraith with them, he deserved better than to be caught in the absurd conflict between Phoebus and Thadan, who were willing to kill so many just to smell each other's blood.

Ronon lay gut shot and shocky…and Carson stepped between him and the abyss.

Ronon lay dead and no one had brought so much as a sip of water to ease his passing.

Ronon lay gut shot and shocky…

Ronon lay dead…

Carson rose and left the hut, needing air and water and sunlight. He closed the door behind him.

Ronon lay dead…and then he simply faded away…

…..

Ronon Dex awoke to a world of pain. Hands held down his shoulders, his legs and arms as he struggled to free himself from the darkness all about him. His lungs pulled in gasping breaths as the sensation of life, of living, returned. With all of this movement came wave after wave of pain, forcing him to curl onto his side, to instinctively draw up his legs, guarding his middle.

"Ronon!" Was that Beckett? No. "Dr. Biro, he's waking up."

He continued to struggle as much as the agony blasting through him would allow, for who knew what was really happening. One minute shot, the next lying helpless in the infirmary, the next after that struggling to stay alive with all his systems shutting down from a tiny little thorn in his shoulder. He'd had much more dangerous things within him, a tracking device, a bullet, fear and rage.

This was it, though. He had finally died, clearly recalled Dr. Beckett's pleas for help and the others' insistence that no antidote existed. Ronon remembered hearing that, surely enough, and, in extremis, regretted only that he had not told Carson and the others how much he appreciated their help, appreciated them for helping him, these pale, flawed people—like Carson. Especially Carson—who always wanted to fix things that couldn't be fixed.

He stilled himself, more aware of people moving about him, tending to his body. This type of intimacy didn't bother him. Biro or someone else must have given him some painkillers, for he felt a sting and then gradually faded away.

"Suture kit. Now," she said, just as the echoing grey took him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Part Fifteen: Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin**

"It was happening…_again_!

"_One minute to self-destruct_."

This time, oh, this time he would get it right. Atlantis would surely open herself up and let him save her, save himself, save everyone else. McKay's hands danced over the keyboard, over the control panel's brilliant crystals. Except…

"Nothing is working!" he shouted to the empty hall around him. "Damn it!"

But the system refused to respond. Atlantis had betrayed him. His beloved city. Out of ideas and out of hope, he stilled himself awaiting the inevitable.

"_Thirty seconds to self-destruct_."

He hid his face in his hands. "Please. I will share you. No, no! I'm begging, here. Will you…we can be friends."

"_Fifteen seconds to self-destruct." _

His face was pulled into a rictus of unspent screams, shining and slick with sweat and tears and snot.

"Don't kill me again. I didn't think to ask but I promise, I swear, with God…with you…as my witness, I will never take without asking. I swear, I swear…" and his voice faded to a hoarse whisper.

"_Ten…nine…eight…"_

It was time.

"_Seven…six…five…"_

Time to regret.

"_Four…three…two…"_

"Forgive me."

"_One."_


	16. Chapter 16

**Part Sixteen: Satori, Nirvana, Etc.**

This time it was different. No explosions. No terror or despair. McKay found himself in the chair once again, quite alive.

"I'm listening," he said, without sarcasm.

McKay stopped the chatter between his ears, because he wanted to take a moment or the rest of his life—assuming that he was still alive—to consider what Atlantis was saying and how she was saying it. This time he would still himself. Breathe. If he loved her, he would do just that without the ego bullshit and the sex bullshit and the bullshit that said he had to get her to submit to him. It was quite the other way around, actually. He lived within her, gestating there by her largesse. She reached out to the galaxy through him, through Sheppard and Elizabeth and Teyla and all of the others—with the gene and without--who had come such a long way.

The chair deactivated, gently righting itself. McKay realized that he was being nudged off the seat, so he rose, quivering and spent, and lay down upon the platform on which the chair stood.

He waited for the inevitable alarm. But none came. An hour passed. He dozed and came back, rolled to his side and struggled to sit up, leaning his shoulder against the side of the chair. Placing his hand on its sculpted surface, he sighed contentedly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he whispered.

…..

The device glowed briefly, then settled. Zelenka noticed this. He had been watching the object for quite a while, sitting with his feet propped up on a console with the thing lying in his lap, hoping to detect activity of whatever sort that would indicate the rematerialization of the last two holdouts, Rodney McKay and Carson Beckett.

At the same instant as the device's momentary reawakening, a life sign appeared in the area of the chair room. Simultaneous to that, the grey dust in another storage pod disappeared. Radek stared at the pod, uncertain but hopeful that he had witnessed the return of a colleague, not the death of one.

Zelenka tapped his headset.

"Rodney? Dr. Beckett? Can you hear me? This is Zelenka. Please respond."

He expected the silence he received in return. Moving to the next logical step, Zelenka tried his comm again.

"Elizabeth, are you awake?" he said gently, collecting equipment with which to survey the chair room.

Weir had left Zelenka's lab some hours ago, having been up most of the previous night and all the next day with this situation. Zelenka called to her again, in case she had slept through his first transmission. In time, she responded, her voice heavy with sleep.

"Zumph?"

He smiled a bit. The woman delighted him on so many levels.

"I believe that someone has been, uh, reconstituted in chair room. I will accompany a search and rescue team, if you wish."

"Yes, coordinate this with Colonel Sheppard, please." He could hear the muffled sounds of Elizabeth pulling a shirt over the com still mounted on her ear. Charming. "I will…" she sighed, obviously gathering her thoughts. Radek could almost feel her breath against his ear and shivered slightly. "I will meet you and the others at the transporter in ten."

"Understood."

…..

They found him slumped against the chair, in the place where he'd experienced his revelations about Atlantis, under his figurative Bodhi tree. McKay didn't hear the voices that tried to rouse him, or feel the hard knuckle bruising his sternum or the gentle hands placing him on the cot.

He was dreaming of a stunningly beautiful woman, lovelier than any he'd ever met, Sam Carter included. They were in the south pier hallway, leaning against the wall, and her voice was coming through that wall, explaining about the city, about her love for the Ancients and the humans that lived within her. She was so beautiful and he loved her so much because of all the things that she so willingly shared.

Then she changed. "Rodney McKay, you don't come into this house as if you own it. This is my house and, God damn it, you don't own a square inch of it!"

He could live with both. She was like himself in some ways. Generous on occasion, an asshole when it took too much effort to be anything else.

She was patient, she was kind. She was a bitch at times, as well. Rodney knew nothing about how to handle people in general, let alone how to finesse the city. But he would try a little harder. Maybe someday, it would come more easily to him.

The darkness around him lightened, sharpened, gave itself color and form until McKay realized that he was awake again. Alive again, or maybe for the first time.

Now he felt it, the tiredness that had been waiting on the sidelines for him to leave the game. It plundered every part of him so that he could scarcely move, let alone speak coherently. A tremendous thirst arose, one so strong it almost made him cry. For the first time ever, he was glad to feel the cool swab of an alcohol prep and the painful slide of an IV cannula up his vein.

"Dr. McKay," someone said at the far periphery of his hearing. "You're going to be fine. Just rest for as long as you need to."

More welcome words had never been spoken. He gave up trying to keep his eyes open and, with a deep, peaceful breath, flew away.


	17. Chapter 17

**Part Seventeen: Paved With Good Intentions**

Carson blinked and held out his arms, amazed that he was denied his chance to travel with Ronon on his last journey.

"He will need a proper burial."

Carson's tears were drying on his cheeks as he stood in the high afternoon brightness outside the hut in which Ronon had died. Eoin stood back a few paces, as if Beckett himself were unclean.

"We do not bury our dead," Eoin responded. "If we did, then we would have to prepare them, touch them." He gestured towards a large structure approximately two kilometers away. It seemed to fade out behind a blanket of mist rising from the nearby streams, obscuring the building's finer details.

"You…what? You put them in there, do you?" Eoin nodded. Beckett grimaced at the thought of bodies lying exposed to the elements. He now knew the source of the putrid odor that occasionally settled on the village. "Well, you have to touch the bodies in order to move them, don't you?"

"It is our punishment," he said. "The more severe the crime, the more dead must be carried and laid out in the Pavilion."

"Then why are criminals not sentenced to burying them instead? It's not right or healthy to…to…" He could not finish his sentence.

Eoin said nothing. He simply laid a cloak across Beckett's shoulders and, with a tip of his head, led him along the footpath leading to the structure. The doctor did not wish to go there, could not imagine a worse place on any planet.

"Didn't you kill me? Aren't I dead?" he asked. Then, a moment later, he stood much closer to the Pavilion, as if he had flown there.

Incredulous now, Beckett hesitated. The scene had loosened the bonds of reality and become more fantastical with each passing moment. He felt dizzy and staggered.

Eoin steadied him. But the youth's strong hands withered and grew white and spotted with age. Beckett regained his equilibrium and gazed at Eoin's face, to see that it had changed, that Eoin had now become the old woman, Phoebus.

"I will take you there," she was saying, as her claw-like hand gripped tighter, until Beckett felt ragged fingernails pressing half-moon slits in his skin. The smell of death grew stronger with each forward step.

"No. I don't want to see it!" Beckett pleaded.

The decrepit spectre said nothing, her papery lungs whistling with effort. Beckett had already decided that Ronon would not end up there. He would set up a pyre, send off the man in a torrent of fire, something entirely fitting for a great warrior. Then he would take the ashes and float them down the nearest river.

Without being aware of how he'd arrived, Beckett stood at the entrance to a great hall, its bare foundation carpeted by bodies erupting with decay. A thousand people, perhaps more, lay in the dust. His feet felt cold and, looking down, Carson noticed that he wore no shoes.

"This is what they have done." A child, a girl no older than ten, appeared beside him. "The Wraith."

He looked at her, watched her watching the dead. Her face registered the blankness of someone deeply stunned, fighting for her sanity. He wondered whether his face held that same expression.

"I'm so sorry." Carson really meant that, although Ronon was dead, although there was a high probability that he himself was dead, as well.

"My father lies in this room," she said in a voice so low Carson could barely hear her words. "My sister and brother, as well. We do not speak of the dead. When they pass they are gone as if they had never been."

"How can you be so heartless?" Beckett asked her.

"To protect ourselves lest we lose hope for the future," she replied.

Beckett couldn't imagine a future without memories of the generations gone past. Even in the midst of a galaxy ridiculously far from home, he remembered.

They were quiet for a time. The doctor looked away from the gruesome corpses.

"We are sorry about your friend," said the girl. She, too, looked askance, nothing at all behind her eyes. "We did not mean for him to die. You did not mean to bring him with you on this journey. He would forgive us both if he were here."

This was a difficulty for Carson right now. He wasn't at all certain about the nature of forgiveness, whether it must come from within or from without. Many years ago he had read about people who unwittingly commit evil in an effort to do good. Perhaps what stood him apart from other evil doers was the goodness that always rose within him, trying to find expression.

He couldn't be sure about this, either. Evil doers always try to justify the havoc and suffering they cause. What made him any different? He would have liked to discuss this with Ronon, but now it was too late.

The child took Beckett's hand. "You would die for your friends?" she asked, her tiny voice heavy with sorrow.

"Yes. 'Course."

"Then you are a good man."

"It's not always about dying, lass" Becket sighed. "The dead are out of their misery. It's those who stay behind who suffer, wha' linger on the brink of death themselves or madness." _Like all of you_, he failed to add.

"Stay with us." Eoin had come to Beckett's side. "You may choose. Go back to your endless war where every lost soul is mourned. Or be with us. Bettina is waiting, we have food here. You need want for nothing."

Beckett appeared to consider this for a moment. "Food and sex are good motivators," he said, pretending to smile at the beguiling temptations.

"Quite." The young man seemed far too inexperienced to be discussing such things. "If Bettina is not to your liking, there are other women. Prettier, younger…"

Eoin's voice trailed off, and Beckett knew that great promise lay within the silence that followed. He supposed Bettina could distract him. Then he wouldn't have to think about his mistakes. If he stayed in the village he wouldn't have to face the damage he had done or try to repair it. Here he was forbidden to cure or grieve or bury.

Beckett imagined a line in the earth separating good and evil, but then realized that this strange village was both and that it was neither. Perhaps the line between good and evil was supposed to be thin. Perhaps it didn't exist at all and he was both and neither, like this place and the people living in it. Ronon might have been able to tell him about this, he thought. Ronon, who surely hated him for throwing caution to the wind, but appreciated that Beckett had wanted to save him. Ronon, who never forgot, who never forgave, either.

He took a deep breath. At that moment, worn from his travels, he felt himself falling, again, and hoped that this time would be his last.


	18. Chapter 18

**Part Eighteen: Cruel to Be Kind**

"It's a treatment for psychological trauma. At least I think so."

"_We_ think so," Bryson interjected.

Pushing his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose, Zelenka bounced on the balls of his feet, renewed now that Rodney was returned and because answers were finally at hand.

"Yes, Dr. Bryson, I am speaking for all of us."

"I see," quipped the younger man. "Sort of the 'Royal I,' as it were. Mind if I clarify things for Dr. Weir?"

Zelenka stepped back with exaggerated deference.

"_We_…" he looked at Zelenka pointedly, "...have been able to connect the device to an electroencephalogram, which analyzes and quantifies electrical activity in the brain. There is but one person still missing, Dr. Beckett. Here… you see?"

He pointed to one of the many laptop computers in the lab, this one connected to the device via a series of cables.

"You're saying that this is Carson's consciousness?"

Anxiety bled through her composure. Zelenka realized that the past two days had taken a toll on her, and he stepped forward and placed a supportive hand on her arm, pleased that she let him do this. Bryson queried Zelenka with raised brows then dropped them again.

"Dr. Weir," he continued. "We believe that this device triggers the Ancient equivalent of hypnotherapy, allowing patients to relive difficult events in a safe setting, so they can move beyond their trauma. On Earth, there are desensitization techniques that appear to have some therapeutic benefit. The only thing that has greater efficacy is deep meditation, as practiced by yogis and so forth."

Elizabeth walked over to the device. Reaching out, she almost touched it, then drew her hand away.

"The Ancients were experts at practicing meditation. If the deeper meditative states actually provide better results, why not just work for that?" she asked.

"Because it is doubtful that someone dealing with emotional trauma could get to the _theta_ level, what with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, such as agitation and hyper-vigilance.

"Anyway, that is my assessment of what the device is for. Once the patient's brain is functioning at the _alpha_ level, at 9.375 megahertz to be exact, a split occurs between their bodies and their minds. The walls of the room in which the device was found were coated with a reflective material, presumably to contain the device's influence and prevent triggering the treatment response in everyone in Atlantis. When we took it from the containment area, the device was able to locate and work on everyone in the city who was experiencing the necessary brainwave frequency."

"Why the split?"

Bryson seemed to almost tremble with excitement at what he'd learned. "As you know, emotional states have a profound effect on the body's physiology. There are blood pressure changes, alterations of heart rate and respiration and so forth. Any psychological treatment that focuses on a life-altering event is going to elicit these body responses. If the patient is also recovering from physical injuries, then eliminating the body—for a short time anyway—can allow psychotherapeutic treatment to occur without negatively affecting the patient's healing process.

"The corporeal selves of patients, basically a few pounds of chemicals, once the water is removed, are stored in these small pods, while their consciousnesses are absorbed into the device, where they work out their problems in simulations that seem to them to be really happening. From what Major Lorne and Dr. Steward have told us, the scenarios resembled intense dreaming. We believe that once a patient has sufficiently overcome the major manifestations of their psychological trauma, the brain and body are reunited and the patient wakes up."

The leader of the Atlantis expedition rubbed her face tiredly. "Ronon has been quite the worse for wear once he was returned. I'd say the device actually harmed him."

Bryson grimaced. "Perhaps…" he stopped himself.

"Go on," Elizabeth encouraged.

The young scientist looked around the room, gathering his thoughts together.

Impatient, the diplomat let her composure slip.

"Are you going to hand me a load of crap wrapped up in a bunch of scientific jargon?"

"Well, no! Of course not!"

"Then what?"

He slumped. "I cannot answer all of your questions, Doctor, although God knows I'd like to. Maybe psychiatric patients were supposed to undergo the treatment with a partner or a therapist to guide them through the process. If that were the case, then our people were unescorted. It may have been a mind-blowingly freaky experience for them. And, in Ronon's case in particular, perhaps someone injured about to undergo treatment is supposed to be medicated to prevent them from coming back as Ronon did. He's going to be okay isn't he?"

Zelenka, who had been watching this exchange with great interest, noted that the color in Elizabeth's cheeks faded as her momentary fit of ire ended. Elizabeth wasn't done asking questions, yet, however.

"So they're cured, just like that?"

"Hardly. But they are righted enough to allow more typical forms of treatment to proceed."

"But as far as we know, none of these people was emotionally traumatized."

"Well, Major Lorne and Dr. Steward reappeared quite early on."

Elizabeth smiled. "Yes, they didn't seem disturbed by anything in particular. They seem to have enjoyed each other's company quite a bit."

Oblivious, Bryson nodded. "Yes, and Mr. Dex stayed away longer, presumably to deal with the events surrounding his injury."

Weir's smile melted, Zelenka noticed. He realized that he wanted to coddle Elizabeth, and that she would never allow him license to do so. He chose to refocus the conversation.

"We are awaiting the last person missing. Carson could be returned in the next ten seconds or the next ten hours. It is not possible to tell."

One by one, the pods had darkened. One by one, people had returned to the city. Zelenka was pleased, not just because his fellow Atlanteans appeared to be healthy—if briefly comatose—but because he had been right. Well, he and Bryson. But it was mostly Zelenka's theorizing that was being proven correct. That was always pleasurable. Elizabeth would smile at him and come and lean close to his shoulder while they examined the device together.

…..

"I was asleep in my bed," Leslie said, wearing hospital scrubs and sitting up in bed.

"So was I," a similarly attired Lorne agreed. "I mean, I was in _my_ bed, alone. Then I was kayaking off the California coast.

"You were?" Steward asked.

"Yeah. It was great. Do you, uh, do sports?"

"Nothing spectacular. Parasailing, rock climbing…"

"Very nice," Elizabeth interrupted. "You can get to know one another later. For the moment, please focus on what happened while you were under the influence of the device.

Lorne let out a breath. "Okay, then we were with Dr. McKay, who was messing about with…" He turned to Steward. "What _was_ he doing?"

"I have no idea," Steward retorted. "He was just, you know, _there_ somehow. After a while, the Major and I…we were talking with each other. Like friends.

"Yes, just like friends."

"Because we are, uh, friendly."

"We're friendly people…" Lorne stammered.

Weir rolled her eyes. "I get it."

The biologist and the major sat in quiet discomfiture. They looked at Weir for direction, seemingly pleading with her to intervene.

"Go on, Major" she ordered, without pity.

"We left Dr. McKay's lab and went to my quarters," Lorne admitted.

Leslie was quick to add, "It was just a dream, Dr. Weir. We were asleep. Or something."

Turning away from the blushing couple, Elizabeth turned to Bryson.

"I think we know everything we need to right about now. Any ideas?"

"Both came out of it, were returned, actually, because the device found nothing to correct."

Elizabeth stood with her arms folded across her chest, trying to get her diplomatic mind around the arcane world of Ancient mental health treatments.

"You mean they don't have any problems? I find that hard to believe."

Leslie had spent most of the morning being visited by friends—mostly male--and reading back issues of "Self" magazine.

Bryson smiled as he gazed at Steward, a flare that Elizabeth noticed quite clearly. She cocked an eyebrow but said nothing. Clearing his throat, Bryson continued. "I had a chance to peek at their medical records. They're more normal than you and me put together."

Bryson chuckled at his own words.

"Speak for yourself," Elizabeth warned, in no mood for levity. "And by the way, the privacy of health records applies in the Pegasus Galaxy the same as in our own."

The two stood staring at one another, Bryson's cheeks red with embarrassment, Elizabeth's pale with concern for her missing CMO.

Elizabeth tapped Zelenka's arm and led him away. Speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, she said, "So Lorne and Steward had a rather interesting experience."

"Yes." Zelenka pondered the floor. "So it seems."

Elizabeth followed Radek's example, and surveyed the grey surface on which they stood.

"Of course, there are any number of things a person can think about as a way of processing experiences. There's the whole Freudian thing, surely, but let's not forget about Jung."

Uncertain what Elizabeth was talking about, half convinced that she was babbling, Zelenka chose to respond with a noncommittal "Oh, definitely. Let's not forget."

"Still," she concluded, "Perhaps Dr. Heightmeyer ought to handle the details. It's really not our place to go…there."

Relieved beyond compare, Zelenka let a small amount of tension escape his shoulders. He wished that Elizabeth would massage his neck, but he'd never think to ask her. Not now, anyway.

…..

"Rodney, please." Zelenka quietly approached McKay, as the Canadian furiously read through notes and examined the device. "You are not well. Better to rest. The device will still be here when you come back."

Since entering the lab, McKay hadn't actually looked at anyone, had not specifically seen them. He was focused on the bit of Ancient technology, on the theories and idea of it, not on the people there.

According to those in the know, McKay had been treated by the device for a little over twelve hours. An eternity. A moment. He was moved from the chair room to the infirmary, where he awoke, intact and unbelievably thirsty.

Once he was properly fed and watered, McKay began looking to get himself out of there, back to his room or his lab or just out away someplace. Kate Heightmeyer dropped by. She pulled shut the flimsy curtain that separated McKay's bed from the others and asked him questions. What did he remember? Who was there with him? Had Dr. Beckett been with him in his reverie?

"Carson? Why do you ask?"

"He disappeared with the others, the same moment that you did, but hasn't returned. It's been almost 18 hours."

Alarmed, McKay rose from the bed and, hospital scrubs and wayward hair be damned, bolted for his lab, where he spent several useless hours trying to pull his wavering thoughts together enough to assist Zelenka.

Zelenka, nice guy though he may have been, had no patience at all for his spaced-out colleague, who could neither fully comprehend the science that had happened in his absence nor apply what he could grasp to the situation at hand.

"You don't understand," McKay tried to communicate. "Carson's still in there. He could be dying! He could be dying…a lot!"

Zelenka gently laid his hand on Rodney's arm. "I know," he said. "Please to put down the device. If you dropped it, maybe Carson would come back okay with his body but his mind…" With that, he stared blankly ahead and made a little cutting motion in front of his face.

Rodney looked on in horror. "Brain dead?"

"Is possible. The device, you will put it down, now." He gently removed the precious object from McKay's hand and placed it on a clean towel that had laid out on the console. Then both men peered at it closely, as if trying to get it to do something by sheer force of will emanating from their capacious brains.

Suddenly, a warm glow lit the device from within, then faded.

McKay stepped back. "Oh, my God! Did we do that?" He touched his forehead, as if energy bolts were streaming from it. "I forgot to ask permission. She's going to be really mad!"

Zelenka turned away from Rodney's cryptic exclamations to look at the city-wide sensor array.

"There!" he shouted, pointing to a new life sign now blinking slowly in the infirmary. "I think we have our doctor back!"


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen: Prodigal Son**

Carson Beckett had fallen and fallen again. He had left one place for another so many times, he could not recall which one had come first, or whether the place he lay now was fantasy, reality or some purgatory in between.

Through all of this, he had felt the bonds that tied his life loosening. He had come full circle, seeing and letting go, feeling terror melt into an almost willful courage. In the end, he seemed to have been forgiven, absolved of the greater sins for the time being. Perhaps one day he would come to forgive himself so that he could go on from there.

Someone spoke to him. Biro, sounding tired. He realized he must have come home somehow. For a second, he felt the dizzying motion of being lifted. Then there was a blanket's warmth and gloved hands caressing him, assessing him. He hoped he was going to be fine.

…..

The first thing Beckett heard upon coming out of his sleep was the sound of Ronon Dex throwing up.

"So much for ice chips." This was one of the day nurses speaking, a hint of frustration and a large helping of exhaustion coloring her diction.

Beckett blinked several times, moving the sludge of sleep to the corners of his eyes. He was accustomed to dozing in the infirmary, although not usually in an area where actual patient care was occurring. Believing that he'd slept through shift change, he was shocked to discover an IV line in the back of his hand and EEG leads stuck to his head.

Ronon lay on his side in the next bed over, gasping in pain and nausea. A nurse attempted to assist him, to little avail.

"How is he, Mary?"

The woman looked up, surprised.

"You back with us, Doctor?"

He nodded solemnly.

"I need to call for Dr. Biro," she responded, and left.

Watching Ronon's heaving back, Beckett felt a wave of sympathy pains for his friend and once again experienced the grief at having lost someone who felt like family to him. After removing the leads and careful of the IV taped to his hand, the doctor pushed himself up from his bed, swung his legs over the side and stood, shuffling across the seemingly endless chasm that separated them. Reaching Ronon's bed, he half-sat and half-stood on the edge of it. Ronon paid him no mind, wrapped deeply in the distraction of his agony.

"Lad, I'll make certain that you get something for the pain."

Hearing the Scot's voice, the Satedan stilled a little bit in his agitation.

"I died, Doc—" he said, asking, telling.

Tears welled in Beckett's eyes again as he remembered losing him. Beckett meant to say more just then, but Dr. Biro stepped up with staff in tow. She had a tech usher her colleague to his bed and finally, finally administered a useful amount of morphine to Ronon. She and Beckett looked at each other.

"We have a lot to talk about," she said at last, approaching Beckett with her usual directness.

"Aye, we do.'

Beginning her reassessment, the pathologist eyed Beckett curiously. "What do you remember?"

"Everything."

"Start at the beginning and tell me…"

"He gets morphine when he needs it. Do you understand?"

She came up short at Beckett's words. He noticed this and didn't care.

"A dying man deserves to not have to suffer."

"He's not dying, thanks to you. Are you confused?" Penlight in his eyes, stethoscope on his back. Inhale, exhale. "Squeeze my hands…follow my finger." Biro was thorough, she noticed most everything. Carson closed his eyes, tuning out all but the hands on his skin and the sound of Ronon's even breathing. There was no smell of rot here.

"Carson?" Heightmeyer, looking more overwhelmed than exhausted, called him to wake again. He opened his eyes to her. "I've seen that look at lot lately," she said, wearily.

Not knowing what to make of that, he tried to stay awake and did for a time. Heightmeyer pulled up a chair. She told him the story of the device.

He did not tell her his story.

"You're getting all of this, right?" the psychologist asked him.

"Yes, dear, I am," he sighed. "I'm feeling fine, now. A wee bit tired is all."

"Would you like to tell me what you remember? So far everyone has had an astonishing story to tell. They all end with an extremely intense experience of…one sort or another. Wish fulfillment, perhaps."

"God, I hope not," he said. "Not for me an' Ronon."

"You were together?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry to quash your theory but it didn't fulfill any of my wishes, let me tell you."

"What were you doing?"

"Dying. We were both dying. An' Ronon worse than me."

Morphine or not, Ronon was listening. Carson looked to see the large figure lying perfectly still, shrouded beneath a white blanket. The big man was turned away from him but that was okay. He knew Ronon remembered and he knew that Ronon remembered in the same way as he did. They had been together in this after all.

Taking in the infirmary, allowing his eyes to settle on each patient one at a time, Carson felt once again the weight of his responsibility, pressing on him like atmospheres upon atmospheres of water. He slept again. It was not refreshing, almost boring. He arose and, fending off assistance, used the lav and asked Biro to release him. He needed to be on the other side of the bed, to get back to his life, since it had been given back to him.

Many days passed before Heightmeyer really got him. She confided that some of those affected by the device had had erotic experiences and Carson felt pretty jealous of them, not that he admitted to it. Heightmeyer got him to talk about Ronon's death, about his own. That was all. It was early days, yet. He still caught himself becoming awash with sorrow at Ronon's passing, coming up out of it bit by bit as the layers healed.

After many days of careful tending, Ronon was released from the infirmary. Carson himself assisted his patient, a man who usually strong enough to pick him up and throw him into next week, to his room, got him situated. It was sad to watch Ronon Dex, of all people, walking so slowly, still healing, still weak.

"I'll send someone 'round every eight hours to bring you your meds. You'll let them know if you need help, if you need anything at all, won't you lad?"

Ronon sat down heavily upon his bed. He did not acknowledge the question, but merely sat with his head hanging, his flopping dreads making him look almost clinically morose. Carson rarely knew what to say to this person. Even in their horrid journey, they had spoken very little. He decided that he was tired of trying to figure him out, of having to mollify him.

He crouched down so his patient could see him from under the hair framing his face.

"Ronon," he said, "I'm so sorry for what happened to ye. I'm ashamed to say that I did nothin' to prevent the battle in which you were injured. You have every reason to blame me. Don't have any reason to believe me, but know that you will heal. God as my witness, I will never allow somethin' like this to happen again."

The room was quiet and close. No one had been in there for a long time. The bed had a musty smell. Someone should have been sent in to tidy before now, but, like a lot of things, the idea got swept away by more important stuff. Or perhaps it hadn't occurred to anyone in the first place.

Carson rose to leave. Ronon clutched his wrist and pulled him back. "You saved my life, Doc. More than once. Do you think that I forget that?"

"Nay, I don't."

"I will always remember. No matter what happens. And I have seen who you are and never thought to blame you for anything."

He released Carson's wrist. The skin there was mottled red, for he had been holding on quite tightly, expressing himself that way as much as or more than his words could.

The window shades were opened halfway, allowing in slants of golden afternoon sunlight. Pure ocean air began working its way into the room, as Atlantis sensed someone in there, now, and let the area breathe again. Carson didn't have to speak with the city to know that she was responding to happenings in this tiny part of it.

He left Ronon and headed back to the infirmary, with its weight of water and his waiting patients. Someday he might end up tending the ill and the worried in a small town somewhere in the northlands of Scotland. Someday he might not have to think about intentional gunshot wounds, trade them in for a bit of buckshot in someone's flank during hunting season. It happened. People made mistakes. They carried them like pounds around their waists, like bits of shrapnel under their skin, like notebooks under their arms.

"Carson." Elizabeth in his headset. She didn't have to ask the question.

"He's doing well," the doctor replied. "Just got him settled in his quarters."

She paused. "Thank you." Not the perfunctory sign-off that he was expecting. It was the rarer thing, the one that said he had pulled someone's ass out of the fire again. Then he remembered who had pulled the trigger. Then he remembered how she must be feeling and he worried for her for a moment and never thought to blame her.

That was who he was.


End file.
